Miracles
by mimma
Summary: It's not as though there's actually a rule that girls can't compete in boy's basketball.
1. Chapter 1

Note: uploading basically for archival purposes; Miracles exists in a longer and probably better form over in AO3. Disconnected ficlets; longer ficbits. More will go up as I figure out in what order they should go in.

**Miracles**

When Takao first meets Midorima in high school, it's just weird, weird, _weird_. Teikou's Miracle Shooter is tall, taller than maybe any human has a right to be, serious-faced, stern and strange. Looking at Midorima in the halls, it's easy to think that this person should be a musician, or an artist, something else just as suited to those jealously kept fingers, meticulously wrapped. Weirdest of all, their brand new ace wears her uniform long and her hair in pigtailed plaits and carries a tape dispenser which she calls her lucky item (Takao looks back on this, sometimes, and sighes for his naivete; the lucky items have only gotten worse), and when they're picked from the first-years for a showcase match against the seniors, she adjusts her glasses and says to him, "Pass me the ball."

"What?" he says, intelligently.

"You're the only other one here who has the potential to make the regulars, even at a school like this," she says. "Get the ball, and pass it to me." The other first years bite back their protests under the watchful eyes of the coach, but Takao can read the gleam in their eyes, they won't do it if they can help it. This is _their_ chance to shine, to make the regular team, and Takao can understand that, at least. No one wants to sit in the shadows forever. But she's unravelling the tape from her fingers and they curl into the unconcious curve of a basketball, eyes fixed on the hoop, and she ran all the warm-ups and drills without shirking or condescending, and Takao wants to shine too, the only way he can, in every way he can.

He gets the ball, and passes it to her.

Sometimes he thinks of it as the start of everything, the long graceful arc of the ball, floating lazily downwards towards victory, and Midorima jerking her head at him, saying "We're on defense," as she strolls by.

.0.

Kise swans in a few minutes late for her interview in between jobs and is impossibly, improbably, even prettier in real life: long light hair, curled and styled and highlighted; huge eyes and long lashes; every inch of her height showcased in her fluttery little Teikou skirt and thigh-highs.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" she says, hands with their deco nails clasped in front of her and bowing profusely, "It's just that since Teikou doesn't need us anymore I'm booked so much now and they just won't let me go! Coach, Sempai, I'm so sorry!"

On the tour of their- if he does say so himself, and he _does_- amazing gym and court, she picks up a basketball in the silence of the few stragglers around to give prospective stars a look at their future teammates, and almost bounces it before she catches herself ruining her nails. She shakes her lovely head ruefully, and says to the coach, "I'd be very pleased to consider Kaijou," meaningless politeness pouring out of her mouth. Her phone is already in her other hand, toys dangling off it so that it looks like her wrist would snap under it's weight.

They nod and stare, because apparently Kise of Teikou is just that intimidating. The rest of the interview passes without incident, but all Kasamatsu can think about is are they really doing this, is it really going to happen? Is this really Teikou's Generation of Miracles, have they all been under a spell for three years of victory and a season of overwhelming invincibility? She's tall, sure, but what else? Is Kaijou really going to bet their hopes on _her_? She's a girl, Kasamatsu isn't good with girls, any girls, let alone girls like Kise, who do things like apply makeup in class and blink at him like they know everything he doesn't, just _girls_. Kise wanders back out the gates like a butterfly, and Kaijou folds their hands and prays.

She's a little bit less flashy when school starts and the sighs of a thousand fans follow her around like the wind rustling through trees, and she beelines for the gym, even before the official start of practices, setting off those ripples in her wake.

"I'm the captain," Kasamatsu says, in the absence of anything else to say to a player like her, flicking idly through her phone. If he stares at the hoop just over her shoulder, she's just another uppity junior. "Practices... haven't started yet."

"Oh," she says, and lowers her lashes to look at him. He barely comes to her shoulders, and he can feel her ticking off the boxes: tall, but not tall enough, third-year, last chance to take the school anywhere. Not very good-looking. Won't look her in the eye, though she appreciates that might be hard.

Kasamatsu bristles.

She looks at him, and snaps the phone shut, putting her bag to the side, pulling off her blazer, rolling up her sleeves. "I really shouldn't," she says, pink lips pursed, "But if you'd like to, Sempai, we could play a game? It's been a while for me, though." Kise twinkles a laugh at him, and something like an ice-shard. "I'm wearing shorts, don't worry."

He colours, and snaps, "Fine." Uppity junior, uppity junior.

Kise demolishes him, but she must like what she sees, because she extends a hand to him where he's sprawled on the floor, blown away by her dunk, looking at up her bright head haloed in the lights of the gym. Kise plays like a monster. All the video in the world doesn't do justice to it. Why Kise, Coach had said, stern before the sempai, because Kise was going to be the best.

"It's all right, Sempai," Kise says, smiles. "I just hate losing too."

.0.

"You should get along better with the team," says Momoi to her, and Aomine snorts, leans her head on the broad lines of his shoulders and watches his pink head lecturing her about her life again, endlessly. Kagami has turned out to be a disappointment, and Aomine can't imagine that he'll be any better with _her_ shadow on his back in the court. Sigh. Disappointing. It was better before she got this good. She'd thought playing against high school boys would be better, harder, but it's the same old faces and the same old plays, no one to look forward to but her own, and Aomine would quit basketball, but then she'd have nothing left.

Aomine isn't listening to him, but it's been a long time since she's bothered to, and Momoi keeps up the refrain just to make sure that she doesn't fall by the wayside and drop out of her life the way she's almost but not quite dropping out of basketball.

It's never managed to get any funnier that their manager sometimes carts their ace around on his back like a child or like a queen, and that it's an automatic part of his duties to her; but then again, short of dragging Aomine to matches in a sack, it's the only way to get her anywhere she doesn't want to go. Sometimes it's just a snap choice, and she tends to be right, they _don't_ need her for this, but it's the principle of the thing. Someone less cautious and more stupid had once grabbed her by the wrist and tried to drag her to the court for practice: Imayoshi had not bothered with sympathy.

But when she _does_ bother to step onto the court they believe, really believe, that Aomine can do this. She'll take them all the way to the top. It's worth almost anything to them. Momoi can only hope that it will be enough to keep Aomine tied to them in a team of no teamwork, that Touou will be the way towards healing the slashes in Aomine's basketball.

That Kuroko knew what she was doing, just as she always has.

.0.

Kagami looks up, and then, hurriedly, up again, and experiences a moment of dizzying vertigo; he's never seen a girl so _tall_, taller than him, hand reaching for Kuroko like a normal person reaches for a doll. Her hair falls over the new girl's expression, but Kuroko is actually getting irritated and Kagami thinks _again and again with that damn team_.

Himuro watches tolerantly. Murasakibara talks about her former teammates, but never _as_ her former teammates, all about how Kise-chin is so so pretty but too pushy it's annoying and Midorima is weird but fun to tease and Mine-chin and Kuro-chin are inseparable and everyone is nice about finding her nice snacks and Aka-chin is always to be listened to. It's like pulling teeth to even get her to say something about how Aomine played boys out of boredom and the rest of them fell in love or line with basketball, like magnetism, like water running across rock, and then scattered to their different schools, like moving into formation.

It's only on the court, caught up in the game she hates, that Murasakibara even starts to seem a part of something even bigger than she is, diminished and dissatisfied, but still overwhelming. She takes players apart in the game, and tells them about how she hates them, and sees the truth written in their eyes: here's someone who's been born better at their sport than they will ever be. Why don't they just give up now? Even as a girl, she's just been blessed like this.

She hates them, she says. It's sickening, she says. But when she turns her head in response to Taiga's taunt, Himuro thinks _monster_, along with everyone else there, and wonders how she can say, really, how she can say it, that she hates basketball after all.

.0.

"Okay," says Riko, hand over her thumping heart. "Okay- take off your shirt, then."

Kuroko eyes the line of boys with their bare chests watching them owlishly."Er," she says.

"Just do it," says Hyuuga. "Get it over with."

Kuroko nods, and reaches for the hem of her shirt and lifts it up, up-

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" yells Kagami, who reacts the fastest, and Kuroko stops with the band showing, her back thankfully to them and says "But I'm a girl."

"Next time," says Riko, pulling Kuroko's shirt down, "Open with that."


	2. Chapter 2

**Miracles**

Aomine is their first, and arguably (inarguably) their best, driven and daring and darling, playing with the boys, better than anyone else, than anything else, who tells Kuroko _who cares_ when she'll never be good enough to play competitively, who captivates the school idol out of stagnating and into striving, who puts on the uniform and goes onto the court, fast and fearless, before anyone else can realize a girl is competing.

Realize a girl is _beating_ them, cool and effortless, falling and the ball flying through the hoop without touching the sides.

Akashi and Coach and Teikou's philosophy takes over from here, but Aomine was their first, and inarguably (arguably) their best. Without her they might never tried, never have known.

.0.

Aomine grows, and enjoys it. She's always been tall, and so have the rest of them, but now her bones ache, and they crack to bursting with her potential, sending her towering above her class, Momoi, so that she can fling wide her arms and encompass the court, get her hand around the ball and hold onto it with fingers strong enough to hang from the hoop and whoop.

But of course, it's Teikou's basketball team. All of the boys are tall, taking their hearts into their hands by training. There are a few more girls fluttering around the edges taking the practices and going onto the court with their hopes fluttering in their hands, and they're tall too, but not as tall as Murasakibara, who can spread her arms and crush all those hopes and hearts without moving; Murasakibara, who plays basketball almost by default. There are no more questions if they are suitable for basketball, only if Teikou will be enough to contain them, their genius, blazing on the national stage.

Kuroko drinks milk, resolutely. Akashi is never questioned, and the others have their strengths to speak for them, but Kuroko only has her love; the sound of shoes squeaking on the court, the bounce of the ball, the still and silent beauty of a pass in motion. Aomine offering her a fist and a look of wordless joy. No one will try harder than her. No one will want it more. Victory is the only language that Teikou understands.

.0.

The basketball club's getting famous now, so when Kise pokes her lovely head in there, no one is surprised, but they preen a little, and nod their heads.

When she joins, they're a little surprised, but shrug their shoulders; Kise's famously tried everything at least once, after all, and anyone would want to play after watching Aomine, who moves like she'll never do anything better than this.

Then she makes the first string in two weeks and people start whispering, _Miracle_.

Kise isn't surprised. Isn't this natural? Is basketball hard? Aren't you just born pretty? Tall people will be good at basketball, right? This is just the way it is, and the only thing to prove her differently is the last girl on Teikou's first-string, whom Kise mistakes for the sub-manager, short, and plain, and unremarkable.

She misses all her shots. It's easy to forget she's around because she has no presence. Kise even sneaks a look when they're changing and it's like a wasteland on there, filling her with pity.

But playing basketball with her is an entirely different thing, and it's something of that wild, unrestrained rhythm that Aomine has, and something of Kuroko's own making; everything falling into place without a strain or a sound.

It must be hard to be Kuroko. It must be hard to be her, but she keeps trying, and this what she's made of herself, for the sake of the team. For the sake of their victory.

For the sake of Teikou's victory.

Kise slings an arm around Kuroko's shoulder and says, "Kurokochi, do you know, I think we could go shopping some time after practice, wouldn't that be fun?" and laughs as Kuroko shakes her off. With them on the team, Teikou is going straight to the top.

.0.

Aomine doesn't notice when Kuroko stops coming onto the roof to fetch her for practice.

Or she might. Kuroko doesn't check.

.0.

"Let's just get this clear," says Kagami. "It isn't because you're a girl. It's because you suck at basketball. You seriously suck at it. You're just not suited. But after today, I can see why maybe you don't suck as much as I thought."

"Thank you," says Kuroko gravely.

"You all girls?" says Kagami, stepping out of the restaurant.

Kuroko slips after, soft as a shadow. "All," she says, and doesn't say, _two years to become the best. A year to break my heart. Forever to fall apart. Two months to the start of the end of everything._

"Are they good, then? These Generation of Miracles?"

"You wouldn't even reach their feet," says Kuroko. It doesn't matter that he barely seems to believe her. He'll understand soon enough.

.0.

Kuroko takes the form, and hesitates over it. The club table is right there.

This isn't Teikou. They might not let girls play here. No one might be good enough, and all Kuroko's dreams will go to naught. Kuroko hasn't touched a basketball in months, hasn't stepped onto the court, hasn't let her heart out of her chest since she locked it up tight after their third victory.

This isn't Teikou.

She leaves the form on the table. It'll be nice to play basketball again.


	3. Chapter 3

**Miracles**

They sat in uncomfortable silence waiting for their orders to come until Kise said, "Midorimachi, hadn't you better dry your hair? You'll have a headache otherwise."

Midorima glared at her, but unraveled her dripping pigtails, and squeezed water out of them with a towel retrieved from her bag, looking more and more like a bedraggled dog.

"It's so long now," said Kise. "You could do something really nice with that, Midorimachi."

"It's unnecessary," said Midorima, black-faced. Behind her, Kuroko and Kise could both see her teammate craning his head unsubtly towards them. She pulled it all to the side, and loosely braided it, so that it draped over her shoulder. The difference was unsettling.

"You really have no sensibility as a woman," said Kise.

"Just because I'm not vain like you-" said Midorima.

"Kise-san has too much," said Kuroko, quietly.

"Kurokochi, that's mean! Kagamichi, don't you think that these two could stand to make more of themselves?"

All three pairs of eyes focused onto him. "Leave me out of this," he said. "It's none of my business."

"It must be boring being on a team with him," said Kise to Kuroko, mournfully. "Not as boring as being on a team with you, though," she said to Midorima. "Pass me the ball! Three-pointer. Pass me the ball! Three-pointer. But you seem to be doing well with them."

"Die," said Midorima said. "Why shouldn't we do well with our teams?"

"Sometimes you're difficult to deal with," said Kuroko calmly. "It's just that."

"You're just thinking too much," said Midorima, but Kagami thought in that moment about Alex, and being wolf-whistled down the street and talked down to on the court, and maybe he knew about why Kise and Kuroko would be worried about this weirdo getting along with her new team, no matter how good she was.

.0.

"Oh," said Kasamatsu. "Worst thing about Kise hands down is that she's more popular with the girls than we are."

"She is?"

"Oh, yeah," he said, with the dead resignation of a man pushed past his edge a long time ago. "Bentos, love letters, cheering squads, fanclubs… at least the girls throttle the flow of boys because the last I heard if you wanted to give her a love letter you had to go through our manager, the manager of the soccer club, the student council secretary and the kendo club vice-president."

"Ah," said Takao. "People just kind of think Midorima is weird. They're right, mind you, but that's pretty much all the attention she gets."

"Isn't that good, then?" said Hyuuga. "With Kuroko- well, mostly we forget she's a girl. Or that she's there. Sometimes."

"Sometimes Kise will swap shirts right on the court," said Kasamatsu mournfully. "She pulls someone aside and uses them as a screen while she does it. It drives opponents mad."

"It's good that that won't work on us, then," said Riko.

"…that would definitely work on us," said Koganei. "Are you joking, coach? _Look at her_."

"Oh, it drives us mad too," said Kasamatsu, while Riko tried to and was restrained from stabbing Koganei with a spatula. "Mostly because she's so careless about it, but there you go."

"Midorima doesn't even show her knees if she doesn't have to," said Takao. "What's really intimidating is when she takes off her jacket and the guns come out." He patted his bicep. "_That_ scares them."

There was a lull in conversation as everyone looked towards what they had mentally dubbed the 'troublesome' table and Midorima's tall straight back was softened by the long loose braid falling over her shoulder, Kagami's massive bulk next to her further shrinking the impression of overwhelming, enduring superiority. Kise, just across, was just about as big as Midorima- sleeker, maybe, where Midorima was self-contained.

"I've had this thought before," said Hyuuga, "But they're really different when they're not playing basketball."

Takao looked at Midorima and thought about seeing her at lunch or in between classes, clutching her lucky item, away from everyone else, and at practice, clutching her lucky item, practicing away from everyone else. But the Midorima he'd seen bits of just now, sharp and raw and dangerous, racing towards some pinnacle that no one else could see- "On and off the court, maybe," he offered.

"That's where you're wrong," said Riko. "This is only the start of the matches! We're going to be playing basketball all year."

"Well, if we don't knock you out first," said Kasamatsu, putting a portion in his mouth.

"Oh, taunt the losers, sure," said Takao. "I'm flipping this over now, watch and learn."

.0.

Riko pawed through her closet and passed Kuroko the swimsuit.

"Sorry for the imposition," said Kuroko, and took it.

"It's alright," said Riko. "But do you really not have any other swimsuits than your old school one or bikinis?"

"I outgrew them," said Kuroko, with a faint air of dissatisfaction. Riko did get the impression that Kuroko would run and do the exercises whether or not she was wearing a bikini while she trained, but just preferred not to go through the rigmarole. Riko didn't blame her.

"Does it fit?" she called.

"Yes," said Kuroko, and stretched her arms above her head as she came around the partition. Kuroko was muscle of an entirely different kind from Riko's, conditioned differently, trained differently. Kuroko could throw a basketball all the way across the court without blinking. It showed, in how Kuroko's shoulders bunched, and the muscles in her forearms moved under her skin. Riko looked again, blinked.

"It's just a little tight around the chest," said Kuroko, confirming her suspicions.

There was a moment of silence as Kuroko stared straight ahead and Riko tried to pretend she hadn't been staring at their number eleven's breasts. They're... there. That's all Riko is willing to cop to.

"Well, if the boys have any energy to care after the workouts are done," said Riko, just cheerful enough, "Then obviously I'm not working you guys hard enough!"

Kuroko nodded, and hid a gulp. It wasn't as though anyone else was going to care about what she trained in.

#enter Momoi #Kuroko-san Aida-san's swimsuit is waaaay too tight for you #everyone else: whelp we're dead

.0.

Meeting one Generation of Miracles member was like explicating the ends of another, the way they bleed into each other, _on_ each other, like old paint-stains on a white wall graffitied beyond recognition, until the center part of them was a muddled mess, and that core was the Teikou middle school basketball team, the place where they'd tangled together so deeply there was almost nothing left to any of them but basketball.

But Aomine appeared to mostly consist _of_ basketball, and there's her mark on Kise, the flash-bang of her game, the cool dangerous sway; Kuroko, the wild-soft unyielding pressure of total control. There are the contrasts of each other, too, Aomine's insolent swagger and Kuroko's calm self-possession, her smirk and Kise's bright smile. There's Midorima's beaten-tight game and the way Aomine eels around him, without seeming to, without meaning to, like there's nothing she'll ever do better than this.

Kagami plays Aomine and understands for the first time how Teikou has written itself into its children, and how right they are to carry that birthright, how they've beaten dominion into a generation of middle schoolers; that defeat can be precipitated on an unbreakable wall of despair.

And here's Kuroko, again, or the echoes of her, in how Aomine stares at him like a personal disappointment, in how he gasps for breath when she downs him, inescapable, inexorable, unbeatable.

Aomine is waiting for someone to try again, try harder, and Kuroko will never stop trying. Is this what Kagami's been looking for? Have his senses been dead until now?

Kagami plays Aomine and it's a revelation; loses and it's like the first time he tastes air.

.0.

Something that Kaijou isn't sure if they love or hate Kise for is that in the gap between middle and high school, with no one to shout at her until she thought better of it, she did a gravure shoot, and it _always_, _always_ came up as part of their opponent's research.

Fucking _always_.

Kasamatsu would be the first- the very first, followed in quick succession by the rest of Kaijou's regulars, pissed off as hell- to point out that Kise in a bikini in all her airbrushed , made-up perfection was not the same, even remotely, as Kise in her basketball unform with her game face on, but Kise with her game face on tended to get there first, and devastate them without so much as a second glance, dazzling.

And there were the actual fans, who were actually much, much worse.

Kaijou sometimes amused themselves by coming up with random rules for opponents who wanted to talk to Kise, or get her autograph, or possibly send their manager to deliver a love letter. "Only if you're over a hundred and eighty," was one of the crueller ones, delivered to a point guard who just broke even a little shorter than Kasamatsu himself. "Score at least ten points personally, and we'll talk." "What's your rank in school? Top thirty? Are you joking?" and the ever-popular "You get only three love letters a week? Seriously? Back of the line, punk."

"Actually I used to get eight," said the pink-haired punk, who did not break a hundred and eighty but was pretty enough to bypass that, according to the whispered debate currently ongoing in the background, as the club members warmed up for practice and tried to stare down the stranger. "Then I asked them to stop, because my heart is taken. And I'm top ten. Where's Ki-chan?"

"MOMOCHI," cried Kise, and threw herself onto his reasonably wide shoulders, where he lifted her up and spun her around, both laughing and so pretty the team's collective eyes hurt.

"You naughty boy," she said. "Coming all the way over here just to see little old us? Touou must be enjoying you!"  
Touou. Their next opponents? Did Kise's boyfriend _play_ for Touou?

"I wasn't going to," he said, sweetly, "But then I saw this," and he showed Kise her gravure issue.

"Ooooh," said Kise, laughing nervously. "That!"

"Yes," he said. "This. What were you thinking, Ki-chan?"

Kise's eyes filled with tears immediately. "I was in a dark place, Momochi," she said. "We had all left each other! Kurokochi had stopped talking to us! You followed Aominechi off! It was so much money!"

"_Aomine_ confiscated this from her teammates," he said. "She knows what it is now. She's seen it."

"She doesn't care," Kise said.

" I care," he said. "Why did you do this, Ki-chan? _Kuroko-san_ has seen this. What will Akashi-san say?"

"Excuse me," said Kasamatsu. "Are...you a teammate from Teikou? What are you doing here?"

"Oh," he said, and offered his hand to shake. "No, I wasn't in the team, Kasamatsu-san. I was their manager. And I'm Touou's manager now."

"He came to spy on us," contributed Kise. "We should chase him off immediately."

"So...not your boyfriend," said someone who was careful to say it fast enough that Kasamatsu couldn't catch who it was and give them laps until they vomited blood out their ears.

"He's in love with Kurokochi," said Kise. "Momochi, really. Don't you think I know that you came here to scout? You can see our moves when we use them to beat you."

"I already know all that," he said dismissively. "I came to tell you I was very disappointed in your life choices. Also that you look amazing in it, but I knew you already knew that."

"That's very nice," said Kise. "Though you're right, I probably won't do another one at least while I'm in school. It's a bit weird. Now go away, you're disturbing our practice! Goodbye!"

"See you soon!" He called over his shoulder, waved to the rest of Kaijou, and left.

"So..." said Kasamatsu. "Not your boyfriend, used to be your manager, ridiculously good-looking, now manager at the team that beat Seirin so hard it served them right out of the Interhigh." _Doesn't play basketball_, he doesn't say. _Throws you a heartbreaking look over his shoulder as he walks away_.

Kise looked up at him from her stretch and smiled guilelessly. "Before he got his growth spurt Aominechi used to lean on him and rest her chest on his head while she did," she said. "She'd probably still do it if it was possible now."

"What the hell's _that_ supposed to mean?" said Kasamatsu.

"It means you don't know the half of it," she said, and got up to run laps.

.0.

Aomine and Kise stand opposite each other on the court and it's a study in opposites, light hair and dark hair, Touou's black and Kaijou's white, Kise's delicate prettiness and Aomine's forthright strength, staring at each other like all along they've been waiting for sometimes wonders if they're ever going to hit that wall, if Aominechi is, and knows that they probably will, but not today. Or at least, Kise's found her wall and can't help throwing herself at it over and over again, because she remembers this feeling now, this thrill, this vibrancy, and it's always been Aominechi for this, it's always been her like this. Trust Kurokochi, to remember this emotion, to inject it straight into her veins. Aominechi could give up, could have given up when they first tried to bar her from the courts, but she's here and she expects so much from Kise, more than Kise can expect from herself, and Kise does what she always does: reflects it back, and stronger.

And Kise wonders when it was, that she took Aominechi's apathy into her, started skipping practices if Aominechi wasn't going to be there, laughed at Kuroko when she tried to fetch them. When it was she'd willingly retreated into the boredom that basketball was supposed to be her escape from.

Aomine rolls back her shoulders and stalks off, towering above the other players, who look at her as though they've never seen her like this, so sharp she'll slice through them all without blinking. So strong they can't even imagine her losing.

So familiar it sends an ache through Kise's spine.

Kise wants to say _I would never have, without you. We would never have. You're as incredible as anyone I'll ever meet_. And Kise wants to say _I learned from you we could do anything, be anyone, and I'm going to beat you today_.

Then the game starts and the ball is flying through the air, up, up, up, and _no_, Aominechi sneers, overwhelming, incredible, victory in every line of her limbs. _Not today_.

(In this very moment, I'm king.)

.0.

"Ah," said Murasakibara, reaching into the circle of boys with one impossibly long arm. "Kise-chin."

One of the boys looked indecently excited. Himuro wondered if it was him feeling his age, or that he'd just experienced more than they had from being dragged back and forth over the Pacific Ocean, but he didn't see anything to get this enthusiastic about in a spread of an admittedly pretty girl in fairly ordinary clothes.

"Kise?" the fan said. He was a member of the basketball club, and another first-year. Himuro was working his way up the ranks a bit more carefully than he would like, but Coach had already started watching him, and Murasakibara had had to see only one Mirage shot, barely completed and still in the stages of testing, for her to gravitate to him. Well, that and the fact that Himuro passed three different convenience stores on his way to school. "Murasakibara, you know Kise?"

"She was in Teikou with me," said Murasakibara, and turned the pages slowly. "She's gotten prettier."

"Know her?" said one of Himuro's own classmates, yet another basketball club member. "Are you really in the basketball club, idiot? That's Kise of the Generation of Miracles! She's playing at Kaijou now."

"Playing," said Himuro, and cast an eye up to Murasakibara. "Like you?"

"Him," said the mouthy one, stabbing a finger at Himuro, "We can forgive. But you! The Generation of Miracles is famous! The five geniuses of Teikou, and all girls! How can you not know this?"

"Six," said Murasakibara absently, now done with the spread and skimming an article about a new pastry shop.

"Six," said Himuro, and tried to imagine, five more Murasakibaras, half-genius and half-god. But no, she was one, wasn't she, the model, and Himuro studied at her bright smile and came to the realization she was probably taller than he was, and her arms and legs in their soft, fluttery fabrics were muscled and strong.

Murasakibara had relinquished the magazine without much ceremony and returned to her snacks. "Kise-chin, Aka-chin, Mido-chin, Mine-chin, Kuro-chin," she said, counting them off on pocky sticks. "Ah, but Kuro-chin isn't like us."

Himuro contemplated the Gordian knot of conversation that followed as the other two tried to extract more information from Murasakibara, which anyone could have told you was an exercise in futility.

"It must be an interesting story," he said. "How did you girls start playing on the team?"

Murasakibara had gotten bored of the conversation before it even started, and only the fact that Muro-chin had provided half the snacks in her bag kept her from ignoring the question outright. "Because we're the best," she said. "You'll see, in the Interhigh. Mine-chin and Aka-chin are still left."

Himuro slanted a glance at the chatty one and he nodded. He'd been Murasakibara's official babysitter, before Himuro turned up. "Touou Gakuen and Rakuzan High. We're looking to go up against Rakuzan first."

"I'm not playing," said Murasakibara. "Aka-chin will win anyway."

Himuro paused. Murasakibara was one of the strongest players he'd ever seen, perfectly engineered for basketball, and so competitive that sometimes he thought all she was working for was to win matches, even if she barely bothered playing properly in them.

"Hmm," said Himuro. "So, if they beat the sempai and go on through, who'll win? Touou or Rakuzan?"

"I don't care," said Murasakibara.

"The coach said she's showing Touou versus Seirin later," said the one whom Himuro desperately wished he could remember the name of. "It was a slaughter, but so were the Rakuzan matches."

Murasakibara munched on. "Seirin," she said, through a mouthful of crumbs. "Seirin. Seirin. Seirin. I forget."

"Maybe you'll remember when we watch the match," suggested Himuro gently, and watched the emotions flicker across Murasakibara's face: confusion, boredom, boredom, disdain, irritation, resignation, boredom.

"Can we go to the combini after?" she said.

"I think I remember the terms of our relationship," said Himuro.


	4. Chapter 4

**Miracles (The Summer Training)**

"I'll never understand how you got them to agree to this," said Hyuuga to Riko. "We're going to get slaughtered without Kagami, you realise."

"A woman has her ways," she said. "Stop complaining and show some spirit. Look at Kiyoshi! He's getting along fine with them."

"He's a dumbass," said Hyuuga, accurately. "And he's got a fancy nickname too, so Midorima and him and the rest of Shuutoku's elite are probably old enemies from the middle school circuit."

"Iron Heart," said Midorima measuredly as Kiyoshi bounced on the balls of his feet.

"Oh, Midorima-kun," he replied. "It's been a while! You're prettier than ever! Let's have a good game!"

"Such a_ fucking dumbass_," breathed Hyuuga, into the silence of the entire gym freezing as one to stare at Midorima, dressed in baggy practice clothes, taller than all but two males in the room and already sweaty from warming up, stare the very scant few centimetres up into Kiyoshi's stupid, smiling face, and thankfully fail to pull back her fist and clock him one.

She transferred the laser beam of her gaze to Kuroko, who shrugged expressively. Their coach merely stared on, unperturbed. Takao prepared to have to throw himself in Midorima's way so that Kiyoshi could be dragged out of the gym and preferably burned at the stake.

Ootsubo thought at their ace very hard that assaulting a guy who had just gotten out of the hospital was the worst of all possible ideas.

"...yes," she said, pointedly ignoring Kiyoshi's outstretched hand, and over Riko's screech of 'TEPPEI YOUR KNEE YOU ARE NOT PLAYING, OUT'. "Fine." She nodded to Kuroko. "Let's have a good game."

"I don't suppose at any point during the game you might be moved to aim one of your threes at his head," said Hyuuga, partially to her, and partially to relieve his feelings.

"If you had any accuracy worth speaking of," she told him, "You'd be able to do it yourself."

"If I had any sense worth speaking of I'd just have joined the baseball team," muttered Takao. "Shin-chan, don't let your fan distract you, hmm-kay? You can flirt with Seirin later."

.0.

Being sent to run up and down the beach all day while Kuroko and everyone else got to face off again against Shuutoku sucked, and the perfect topper to being hot, sunburned and having sand fucking everywhere was going to brush his teeth, realizing there was a girl washing her face at the basins, sneaking up to try and surprise Kuroko instead for once, and instead failing to surprise Midorima, who looked at him as though he was an idiot.

"What're you doing on this side?" Kagami said, looking at her a bit doubtfully.

"I'm sleeping with your coach and Kuroko," she said. "I asked and they said it was okay. I don't want to sleep with my team. It's easier if it's all-girls."

"What's wrong with rooming with boys?" said Kagami. "If it's your whole team in the big room, I mean."

Midorima glared at him, a deeply disapproving look of _are you stupid?_ "Among other things," she said. "One of them has brought along Kise's latest photobook. Their conversation is annoying."

"Ah," said Kagami, who wasn't sure what a photobook was, but wasn't about to ask because Midorima looked in a mood to kill.

"I could be Kise and pretend they've ever got a chance of looking up my skirt," Midorima said, stabbing at her cup with her toothbrush. "Would they like _that?_ 'Oooh, my bikini's coming undone inside my shirt!' Try getting anything useful out of boys after that kind of ridiculous display."

"Okay," said Kagami.

"Or I could be Aomine," said Midorima, now squeezing out her face towel with prejudice. "'It's too hot. I'm taking off my shirt and sleeping on the balcony. Look and die.' And I could punch them whenever I didn't like their faces, how would they like _that_?"

Kagami made an indistinct noise around his own toothbrush.

"And then just because I don't want to wear my trackpants to sleep, Takao has to go on and on about it," she continued. "'Oooh, are those your legs?' Yes these are my legs. _Shut up about it_."

Thus prompted, Kagami looked down at certainly more leg than Midorima usually deigned to expose in practices or in games, as well as very muscled calves. Midorima was not small by any measure, and she played basketball seven days out of seven, and it showed. She noticed him looking.

"I hope you have horrible luck tomorrow," said Midorima, jamming her glasses on her face, and stalked out.

.0.

"Midorima will be spending the night with the Seirin coach and the other girl," said the Coach. "She will rejoin us in the morning."

A murmur goes up from the boys, generally sighs of relief, but Takao tipped back his head and said, "Wow, we're getting close with them. Why doesn't Midorima want to sleep with us?"

The Coach eyed him. "I can't imagine," he said, heavily sarcastic. "But it makes things easier for us, and it was her idea."

"Shin-chan hates us," said Takao mournfully, once Coach had left and they began to gossip about Midorima and Seirin and the Seirin match.

"Maybe she just didn't want to deal with being leered at all night," said Miyaji, sighing over Kise's sweet face. She was just a model, and would never replace his idols in his heart, but still. She _liked basketball_.

"Leered?" said Ootsubo. "I thought that Midorima insisted on staying with us because she didn't want to be treated differently. Was anything-" he left the edge of it hanging in the air.

"Yeah, yes and no," said Miyaji, "Midorima's usually just Midorima, but then she went down to dinner in shorts and there was some definite leering going on."

"Don't look at me, sempai," said Takao. "I wasn't looking at her legs."

"No," said Kimura. "You were just trying to smell her hair all through dinner, which wasn't weird _at all_, Takao."

"It looks a lot longer once it's down," said Takao, which he was aware did not help his case.

"Anyway," said Miyaji, "Long story short she decided she didn't want to sleep in a roomful of guys and I can't blame her, because _I_ don't want to sleep in a roomful of you guys either."

There were a few minutes of busy silence, and then a third-year said, "Maybe she wanted to run into Kiyoshi or Kagami."

Miyaji and Kimura exchanged looks that meant _we should watch this fucker_.

"You mean," said Miyaji, preparing to squash him. "That guy she can't stand, or that other guy she can't stand? Yes, I could see that."

"They're tall," said the third-year. "I mean, taller than her. Girls like that. Usually."

"Captain," said Takao, "I think he's looking at me."

Ootsubo ignored this- mouthy juniors were a curse from the basketball gods that he _did not deserve_, much like the Generation of Miracles entire.

Miyaji snorted and said, "So's the captain. You don't see her giving a damn."

"But he said she looked pretty," said yet another first-stringer, all whom had apparently been rendered so redundant by Midorima's addition to the team that they had nothing to do but gossip. "And he's… Iron Heart."

"Iron Heart has always been like that," Ootsubo said, to quell the conversation. "And the next person who wants to discuss Midorima's love life can take triple drills for the _rest of the camp_."

.0.

"Shin-chan, you've returned to us?" said Takao, tipping his head back to look up at her as Midorima picked her way through the futons and glared a second-stringer from the spot which was most advantageous to her fortune for the day, and sat on it to brush her hair out before lights-out, folding her legs beneath her. They were still bare up to mid-thigh, but by now everyone was wrung out enough by three days of exhaustive, endless practice to not care anymore that Midorima was female and had legs, not even when she spread out a curtain of long dark hair over her shoulders and blinked at Takao with tolerance that originated in a mixture of exhaustion and satisfaction.

"Seirin's leaving," she said, shrugged. "It was necessary. They're going to watch the Interhigh tomorrow."

Takao hissed a long soft sound of disappointment. "Man, that's a match to watch."

"Kise and Aomine?" she said, disinterestedly, working out a knot. "Not really."

"I would have said Kaijou and Touou," he said to her. "How do you think we'd like it if every time we came around, they just said 'there's Midorima! And absolutely no one else!'"

She looked at him as though he was an idiot. "It'll come down to Kise and Aomine," she said. "And that is what they say."

"I wish you geniuses were easier to deal with," said Takao sincerely, rolling onto his back to relieve his feelings. Always the same Shin-chan. "We normal people exist, you realize."

"Sometimes they mention the captain," she said. "If that's what you mean. And of course you exist."

Takao rolled himself back up into a sitting position, and squinted at her, sitting seiza on her futon brushing out her hair; smiling. "You _are_ in a good mood," he said. "Did you run into Kagami again and smash him again? Or was it Iron Heart, this time? Are you working your way through them? Did you set their first-years to doing drills? Give their coach hair tips?"

"As if," she snapped at him. "It's just- If Iron Heart was in Seirin all this time…and what they've been doing…." She trailed off, and a thin sharp slash of excitement, fever-hot, cut across her face. "Then Kuroko chose well, after all. Seirin is strong."

"Why are you so _happy _about it?" moaned Takao, throwing himself across his futon. "It's not good for us if they're strong, you know."

"Don't worry about it," she said, and cast her eyes over her team, their team, yawning and stretching and talking in quiet voices about nothing in particular, united in purpose if not in activity. "We're strong, too. Shuutoku," she added generously. "Not just me."

Takao made a face. "I know you're a girl and all," he said, watching Midorima run a hand through her hair, oddly delicate without a lucky item clutched in the crook of her arm, fingers untaped, and _prettier than ever_ bouncing around in his brain. Had he ever known they would be here, and would he ever have given it up? "But can you not say such disgusting mushy sappy things? It's weird."

"Shut up, Takao," she said, and looking at her Takao thought _we mean you. You're stronger than any of us. We'll say Shuutoku, and mean, you. You're going to the top, and we're just along for the ride; we didn't know what we were getting into but we're never going to regret it_.

-

"We could ask Kise, you said," said Moriyama, head down on the table. "She's a girl, you said. She's sure to have pretty friends, you said."

"Hey," said Kise.

"To be fair, they did come, and they were very pretty," said Kobori. "They just left after we kept…talking about basketball."

"Kise why didn't you _stop us_," said Moriyama.

"I don't understand what's wrong with _you_," she said to Kasamatsu, completely ignoring her other sempai. "I mean, you talk with me all the time, and I'm a girl."

"Not like a real girl," said Kasamatsu, without thinking.

"_What_," said Kise, setting down her boot-clad heel with an audible _thunk_. The rest of them sucked in their breaths, tutored enough to recognize that even if- perhaps especially if- the girl was Kise, lovely but familiar, that was not something that should ever come out of a guy's mouth.

"I mean, you like basketball," he said. "You- you're- you play like-" he waved his hands, sunk into an ocean of despair.

"Oh, god," said Kise. "Is _that_ why you couldn't look me in the eyes when we first met, and at the interview? I thought you just didn't like that I was a girl, not that you were this bad with girls in general!"

"Maybe that's what we need," mused Moriyama. "Girls who like basketball. Kise, do you know any like that?"

Kise blinked at him slowly, and, when he did not appear to be joking, said "Yes, sempai, but they would all be better at basketball than you are."

"But all of you are pretty," he persisted. "Surely-"

"If you want to hit on the Generation of Miracles, you're on your own," said Kasamatsu. "Try it the next time we face them, see how they like it, we could use the laugh. Kise- Kise, what's with your face."

"I just tried to imagine the kind of guy who would hook up with any of them," she said. "It's absolutely impossible.

"Ah, not just for you," she clarified hastily. "For- for anyone."

"Even you?!" yelled Hayakawa, getting worked up again, for no reason.

Kise's eyes swept shut, weighed down by long, long dark eyelashes and a nominal amount of glitter, and she looked at Kaijou's captain through them, now examining in his head the possibility she'd just raised, and looking suitably horrified. "If you guys don't have any time to do anything other than play basketball and sleep, please think about me," she said.

They nodded their heads, and sighed.

.0.

Requested originally by kisseki-no-sedai on tumblr

Talking to Kise while in school was always a surreal experience for Kasamatsu, not least because Kise constantly traveled in a cloud of fluffy-haired, short-skirted girls and tall, similarly short-skirted sports girls, who squabbled good-naturedly over their idol and enacted stirring stories of love, friendship and youth all over the school grounds while Kise beamed benevolently down upon their heads. They formed ranks around her whenever an auxiliary cloud of boys materialized in Kise's vicinity- and they _always_ did- and parted ranks to let the chosen few through: the aspiring idol from class 3, the captain of the baseball team, who confessed with monotonous regularity once a month, and Kasamatsu himself. Kise would blink mascaraed eyes at him, smile with shiny pink lips, and endure Kasamatsu staring fixedly at a point over her shoulder not even risking catching a glimpse of their femaleness throughout any given conversation.

Kise had once tried to explain to Hayakawa why the captain got to talk to her in school and he decidedly did not- nationally-ranked school sports team captains outranked everyone in sports-crazy Kaijou, up to the actual student council executives; he was the most senior of all her basketball seniors; everyone thought Hayakawa was really annoying and they didn't like him; the girls tended to take Kasamatsu's frozen silence around them as evidence of much-valued seriousness and solidity of mind towards basketball; they wanted her to have as much time with him as possible before he graduated and left for university.

"What?" said Kasamatsu, while Hayakawa went into fits in the background.

"Oh," said Kise, pausing mid-drill. "Because I like you."

"Oh," said Kasamatsu. "Wait, what? What, WHAT?"

Kise blinked at him, too-innocent. "Well, that's their reasoning," she said, and began counting off on her fingers, her other hand _still_ dribbling the ball. "We're always training together and we talk a lot, you treat me differently from other girls, and I'm always happy to see you."

Kasamatsu hyperventilated and made gasping noises and waved his arm at the whole expanse of the gym full of basketball club members, which Kise correctly interpreted as "We're on the same team, of course we spend a lot of time together, do they think you like all _these_ guys?"

"I told them that all my heart was in basketball and I had no time for love," said Kise, soothingly. "They think it's very brave and they're looking forward to our wins at the Winter Cup."

Moriyama had taken hold of a clipboard and was now scribbling furiously. "…happy…to…see…you," he said. "Are those it? Are those the signs a girl likes you?"

"No girl has ever been happy to see you!" snapped Kasamatsu. "_We're_ barely happy to see you. EVERYONE STOP TALKING ABOUT GIRLS DURING PRACTICE."

Kise laid a hand on her forehead and swooned onto the bench, narrowly missing a water bottle and the coach, who had a hand over his eyes and was muttering to himself. "Kyaa, Captain," she said. "So forceful! So cool!"

"DOUBLED DRILLS," Kasamatsu shouted at them. "ALL OF YOU!"

Kise laughed, tipped the ball over her hands and began to do her drills double-time just to show she could.

Tagged: #Hayakawa actually does like Kise #no one encourages this #Kise: still the sanest person in any given team


	5. Chapter 5

Kagami doesn't know why it should actually surprise him any more, but Hanamiya Makoto- after a night spent hating the name, and concocting dire punishments for some evil player's stupid face- looks _sweet_. Her long hair is fastened to the side, and she's tall, but not Midorima-tall, not Aomine-tall, though he will concede that possibly no other girls are going to be as tall as the Generation of Miracles.

The coach and captain stare at her with loathing across the court. Her team- _her_ team, as Kagami notes the four on her jersey- smirk a little, stretch a little, go on warming up. They're completely unconcerned that Seirin are boiling over.

All except Kiyoshi. "Hanamiya-kun," he says, accepting the ball.

"You look good," she says to him, smiles. "Really, I wouldn't have expected it."

"So do you," says Kiyoshi, and maybe- _maybe_- there's something of a strain to his smile, but Hanamiya tips her head to the side, folds her hands in front of her, sparkles.

"So kind," she murmurs, around one graceful hand. "Ah," she says, and smiles again, behind that same hand, with her all malice and spite, looks sweeter and sweeter still. "Do be careful, in this match, Kiyoshi-kun. We wouldn't want any kind of recap of last year."

Kagami has never wanted to punch a girl so hard _in his life_.

.0.

Aomine yawned, heading for the washroom. Boring, really, all the faint ache of watching Kuroko be her best with someone else aside. She had no idea why Momoi had bothered convincing Imayoshi to bring her; no matter how eager he was to show off his genius junior- or girlfriend or ex-girlfriend, or something? Aomine didn't care- it wasn't as though Kirisaki was going to make it past Seirin or Shuutoku. They hadn't even tried with Midorima, she'd heard, and that was laughable enough, as though they were so weak that even Midorima's prissy face had scared them off. It wasn't even as if Kagami was going to improve magically once his legs had healed, even if Momoi had been right that she had had a hand in that by challenging him when he was supposed to rest. It was a pity that Kuroko hadn't let him punch their opponent, but that was her all over; nothing allowed to interfere with the game.

Maybe Momoi had brought her along just in case Kuroko needed help getting rid of the body after, she thought, and then, _speak of the devil_.

"Oh, you," she said to Hanamiya Makoto, washing her hands.

She simpered at Aomine. Aomine had a certain amount of respect for anyone who both openly loathed her and wasn't actually afraid to show it even when she was looming over their pathetic heads, but Hanamiya's seething, dead-eyed hatred of the entire world frightened Momoi, and fencing barbs with her wasn't worth the time.

"You're going to lose," Aomine informed her, just as she was about to return to her sad little team. She simpered back at Hanamiya, who was pretty, in the right light, but not _that_ pretty. Imayoshi was just warped. "Just to save you the time."

"Oh?" she said, "Do tell. Please do tell."

"It's just that you've made her angry now," Aomine said, and meant, _don't forget, she's one of us, better than anyone else. Better than you._ "It's just that."

.0.

"So tense," said Hanamiya, strolling back onto the court after half-time and cracking her neck, smiling at Kuroko, at Kiyoshi. "Couldn't find a man in this bunch to relax you in the locker room, sweetie?" Where the referee couldn't see, she made an indescribably filthy gesture at her, leaving them in no doubt as to her meaning. Her other hand covered her mouth demurely as she giggled.

Kuroko only stared at her. It was categorically impossible for Seirin to loathe every fibre of Hanamiya Makoto's being more, but somewhere they found extra supplies of hatred and disgust.

"You motherf-" Kagami began.

Kuroko pinched him. "Baiting," she said, moving into position.

"I know," he hissed back, and then the whistle blew.

"Kuroko," said Hyuuga, as they waited in the locker room for Riko to pronounce Kiyoshi able to walk home, her strong hands moving up and down his limbs with gentle efficiency. "What Hanamiya said- in the match-"

"I don't understand why anyone would play so horribly," said Kuroko, and Kiyoshi nodded, followed hesitantly by the people who did not think that basketball was a set of life principles.

"No-wait-that is-" sputtered the captain. "I mean- do you get that, a lot? Did you get it? Because you're- you're a- and you're playing with us-"

"Yes," said Kuroko, ever direct. "Do not concern yourself. I have heard much worse from other opponents."

"Yeah," said Hyuuga. "That's- that's my point. Are you- I mean, for all of you…does it get- bad?"

Kuroko looked around at all their anxious faces, and something about the day- the match, their bruised limbs, the way Aomine had smiled when Kuroko came out for the fourth quarter, and at the end her back in the Touou Gakuen uniform, so strong , and insurmountable- made her say, "Of course. But the only thing to do is keep playing. We were not playing basketball to please anyone else but ourselves."

There was a moment of dreadful silence, and Hyuuga thought about the Generation of Miracles, and looked at Riko looking at Kuroko; he'd heard some things they didn't like there too, about a lone girl playing at being coach with a group of boys, going on training camps unchaperoned, head bent with his late at night over match videos, working until the words blurred before her eyes. He wanted to say, _which opponents, what filth_, and scrub it away from all of them, even sparkling, giggling Kise and snobbish, serious Midorima. Shuutoku had turned positively frosty towards them after Kiyoshi's idiotic comment at the camp, taking their Miracle under their wing, because she was theirs, their teammate and comrade. It was not anything to be taken lightly.

Kiyoshi broke the silence with a sigh as he stretched out his massive arm and tested the bindings for mobility. "Speaking as an opponent," he said. "I can say that no amount of cursing would have changed the score on the board. There was nothing anyone could say after that, and there was nothing else worth saying or doing."

Kuroko regarded Kiyoshi with her unreadable eyes, and everyone recalled that Teikou had faced off against Shouei in over a year of overlap.

"Of course," agreed Kuroko, who would always carry some things about Teikou close to her, and not just Aomine, but all of them, who'd worn that jersey and walked that road. "There's nothing else we need to hear."


	6. Chapter 6

**Five times Riko had to deal with Kuroko's Terrible Friends**

Walking into the bath, she saw that Midorima was already in there, the long wet dark ropes of her hair spread over her shoulders as she sighed in the bath. As expected, Shuutoku's practices were just as intense as Seirin's. Riko had even gleaned a few useful tidbits, such as, if they're not throwing up, they haven't run enough yet, and why walk when you can sprint? It was _very_ educational.

She turned her head to the entrance at the sound of the door. "Kuroko?" she murmured. Midorima was apparently blind without those glasses, which Riko stored away as a fact to further needle Hyuuga-kun with and said, "No, it's Aida."

"Seirin's coach," said Midorima, as though there was an abundance of girls in the inn at the moment. Her shoulders flexed just above the water, and Riko caught herself staring- D? E? and those muscles, smooth under her skin. Some of the _boys_ had trouble building that much muscle tone. The stats climbed quickly in Riko's eyes, incredible.

"Kuroko will be along after she stretches," said Riko, settling in to soap herself. They staggered the shower times somewhat, to avoid overwhelming the inn with sweaty teenage boys. She'd left the boys to their stretches to wait out Shuutoku's deluge and Kuroko was still with them. It was nice to have another girl along, even a girl like Kuroko, who never talked and passed out immediately on her futon from exhaustion.

Midorima stood up, and Riko really did stare- her figure- the slow gradients of gold up her long limbs from training in summer- Teppei might have been onto something, when he'd said that Midorima was pretty, blinking steam from her eyes.

"I'll scrub your back," she announced, squinting as she located a washcloth and advanced on Riko.

"What?" said Riko.

"You're older than we are," said Midorima, which Riko supposed- yes, but-

"Midorima-san," she said, calmly but firmly taking hold of her hand with the washcloth and relocating it. "That's not my back."

"Really?" said Midorima, coming in close to try and focus.

"Really," said Riko, and bit back anything further.

"I… notice you are getting sunspots on your shoulders," said Midorima, after a pause. "You should watch out for that. It's very unattractive to have happen."

"…what?" said Riko, turning to look into Midorima's squinted-up face, examining her back.

"You should be applying an adequate amount of sunblock for summer training," Midorima said, going to adjust a missing pair of glasses. "It's simply a matter of being conscious of your health."

"I-" said Riko. "I see."

.0.

Relaxing in the water, Riko sighed at the noise the boys were still making. Honestly. Trying to peep on the women's bath. It was like nudity made them all kids again, even Hyuuga-kun, even Teppei. _Boys_. Riko could not locate Kuroko in the steam, and did not try.

"You mind?" muttered through the shadows, familiar.

"Ah, no- EH?" said Riko. "You're Touou's-"

Touou's ace turned her head and look at Riko without comprehension. "What?" she said.

"…Seirin," said Riko.

"Oh," said Aomine, and then clearly thought very hard while Riko continued to stare at her. "Oooh, the _coach_. Aida, Momoi said. Seirin's here?"

Riko jerked a thumb to the wall, where the boys were yelling again, and Aomine said, "Huh."

Riko's mind raced. Aomine's stats were staggering, amazing. She rolled out her shoulders and they flexed in ways that made Riko's head spin. And her _chest_- Aomine was tall, and sitting in the water she-

"We just came from a practice match with Josei," said Aomine, aware that there was probably some flag-flying she should do here for Touou. "We won. You're kind of flat. Maybe you don't eat enough."

"What?" said Riko. How did that even follow- oh, that Josei boy. The pervert. But she _didn't have to take this_. Kind of flat? Just because Aomine was-

"I mean, even Kuroko's- wait-" said Aomine, looking around. "If you're- then isn't Kuroko-"

Kuroko's limp body bobbed to the surface, and Aomine and Riko emitted faint, but perfectly synchronized squeaks of horror.

"KUROKO DON'T _SLEEP_," roared Aomine, and scooped the other girl out of the water as easily as a ball.

.0.

"Teppei," said Riko warningly, calling Kiyoshi to heel. Kiyoshi had a brand new pack of candies not yet opened, and he offered them to Murasakibara with a smile and to the sound of Kagami's friend murmuring something frankly unkind about strangers with candy.

Murasakibara stared intensely at the pack and then glared at Kiyoshi. Riko didn't blame her. Hyuuga-kun had the same suspicious stare when it came to Kiyoshi all the time. She took it, then held it as Kiyoshi beamed at her relentlessly. "What?" she said.

"Nothing," said Kiyoshi, still smiling.

"Is it your last pack?" said Murasakibara, unwilling to let go of it now that she had hold of food.

"Yup!" said Kiyoshi. You'd think that anyone would have more sense than to bait someone where her team of muscular athletic boys could see him, but apparently not.

"We'll buy you some more later," said Riko, exasperated, coming up to his elbow to tug him away.

"Okay," said Kiyoshi brightly, finally letting go of the candies.

Murasakibara stared at Riko, and then fished out a snack from her pile and gave it to her, apparently working on the principle of equivalent exchange with anyone not Kiyoshi. She returned to her team and their coach shared a speaking look with Riko about difficult players.

"Er," said Riko to Murasakibara's back. "Thank you." She turned it over and read the packaging.

When Teppei leaned over her shoulder and read, "With collagen for improved ski-" she punched him in the gut.

.0.

Akashi swept right past Kagami's prone form and Riko met her gaze. She didn't doubt that Rakuzan's Akashi knew who she was, and that Seirin intended to face- and beat- Rakuzan in the finals. If she didn't know now, she would by the end. They were ready for it. If Akashi-san- no, wait, there was no need to add the –san, she was a first year brat _like the rest of them_, and Riko had her pride- if Akashi thought she could scare them by so obviously dismissing them and being perfect and beautiful even right in the middle of a match, then she had another think coming.

Then Akashi's gaze… slipped downwards, and Riko's followed, automatically. Ha. Ha ha ha. Ha-_ha_. Rakuzan's golden girl was _flat as a board_. Riko knew it was petty and beneath her, but Akashi had looked first, and the moue of her perfect little lips would linger on in Riko's memory as a small hot coal of satisfaction for _hours_, even looking at the terrible score on the board, and Rakuzan's tense focus.

.0.

Kise dug into her bag, sparkling, as behind Riko and Kuroko the boys scrambled into the corners shrieking about their maidenly virtue like idiots. "I almost forgot I wanted to give this to you- Kurokochi, you should really use that mask, it's a sample and I can always get more for you if you want it, okay?- but Riko-san, this would be way better for wrink-"

Riko shuts the locker room door in Kise's face.

**Kuroko/Kiyoshi; love letter**

When the time came for Kiyoshi to turn up behind the school at the abandoned gardening club area, almost every single Seirin club member was already there, hiding with varying bits of success behind bits of greenery and the crumbling masonry.

"I know that Kiyoshi is stupid," said Hyuuga, "But I'm not sure he's _this_ stupid. He's going to notice. Why are we all so nosy? THIS IS STUPID."

"Of course he's going to notice," hissed Izuki, laid out nearly flat behind a water feature, getting moss all over his uniform. "If you keep _noising_ around."

"_Shut up_," said Hyuuga.

"What _are_ we doing here," said Kagami in an undertone to Furihata, pressed nearly cheek to jowl behind the basins, peering over the top. His back hurt from crouching. Mitobe tried to attract Nigou, but the dog rolled around on the grass, ignoring his imploring gestures.

"Someone sent Kiyoshi-sempai a love letter," he said. "Said to meet here, after school."

"What's a love letter," said Kagami, blank.

"It's like a…confession," said Kawahara. "Um, you send it anonymously to your crush, and then you fix a time to tell them you love them and would like to date them."

Kagami stared at him uncomprehendingly. "Words came out of your mouth," he said. "But they didn't make any sense."

"It's a beautiful love tradition for our delicate springtime of life," snarled Hyuuga from across the yard. "Go be American and unrestrained somewhere else."

"Kiyoshi's coming!" chirped Koganei from around the side of the building. "Hide, hide!"

Kiyoshi ambled into the yard and smiled benignly at what everyone hoped desperately were the plants, growing with abandon and very very green against the blue and black of their uniforms. In one hand was the light blue envelope which had fallen out of his shoebox that morning, directing him here for a private conversation.

"Kiyoshi-sempai," said Kuroko, nodding in greeting.

"Oh, Kuroko," said Kiyoshi. "You're here?'

Every single watching Serin member choked as one. _When did she get here, _their collective eyes shot to each other. _Has she been here all along? Doesn't she know to hide?_

_Is….is she here because she SENT THE LETTER_, emitted Mitobe's eyes first, alight with concern that they had intruded into the feelings of their most private and withdrawn member. They immediately recoiled, repulsed by their thoughtless actions.

"Kiyoshi-sempai," said Kuroko, very serious with her hair blowing about her face, as Nigou chased butterflies and Izuki desperately tried to keep the dog from noticing them. "I…I came to Seirin because of you. I followed your progress after you graduated from middle school, and I came to Seirin because I knew that Iron Heart was here."

Kiyoshi made one of his stupid faces, and kicked his feet. "Well," he said. "It was more complicated than that, you know."

"I know," said Kuroko, and looked at him straight and pure. "I wished to quit basketball too. But in the end… I'm so glad I came to Seirin. I'm glad you didn't quit basketball." She paused. "I wished to tell you that," she said. "Before you returned to the hospital."

Kiyoshi smiled at her, soft and sad and sweet. "I'm glad you didn't quit basketball either," he said gently.

Kuroko nodded, and then walked off, her business finished. Nigou yawned, pawed at Kiyoshi's pants, and then followed, tail wagging briskly. Kiyoshi put his hands on his hips and let out a sigh, then nodded one more time around at the greenery and followed them in the direction of the clubhouse.

Everyone else stayed exactly where they were, choking back their tears and clutching their hearts, digging their fingers into the earth and having feelings everywhere.

"Couldn't she just have told him that at practice?" said Kagami bluntly, standing up and wincing as his back protested. "We're going to be late, now."

"Shit we're late for practice," said Hyuuga jumping to his feet, then falling over onto Izuki because his legs were numb, eliciting a squawk of pain.

"No," said Riko, arms folded, the air crackling behind her, "Really, are you?"

Tagged: #she actually signed her name on the letter #it's just that none of them noticed it


	7. Chapter 7

Aomine prowls around Kagami's apartment like a cat, perching on counters, draping herself over the couch, poking into the bedroom, sticking her head under his bed and demanding to know where his porn stash is. It's horrible and awful, and all Kagami can think is that Aomine's school skirt is incredibly short, and she doesn't wear those long socks that all the other girls that he knows do with their uniforms. She just has on ankle socks, snug around her feet, her sneakers kicked off in his doorway, and her skirt sits on top of all that exposed skin, riding up her thighs. She sits on his bed and says his mattress is nice, almost grudgingly, then goes for the sparse stacks of books and the more substantial stacks of sports magazines.

Kagami doesn't want to say that in one of those books are the pages of the magazine where Teikou's Generation of Miracles was featured, and the picture is of them in the Teikou basketball uniform, Aomine proud and defiant, staring straight at the camera secure in victory. He'd found it after she'd challenged him at the sports gym, putting history to the face she'd put to the name. Kuroko isn't even in that article. He doesn't have any excuse, except to claim that he has it for one of the other members of the team, and when he thinks about that he can almost feel Midorima's eyes boring holes into him and see the smile spreading across Kise's face. The other two are unthinkable. Even Aomine won't believe him, and if she does believe him about the first two, it's just as bad.

"I've got- biscuits," he says, and points over his shoulder to the kitchen, where it's safe. Where there's nothing for Aomine to find out about him, except that he cooks and cleans. That can only be a plus.

"Biscuits?" says Aomine, turning her head up to him, unimpressed.

"Look, get the fuck out of my room," snaps Kagami. "What are you doing in a guy's room, anyway? Stop poking around."

Aomine sniffs and stands up, muttering to herself about how _Momoi_ lets her do anything she wants, and Ryou, and Imayoshi-san.

"Is that _let you_," says Kagami, unable to banish the uncomfortable feeling in his stomach, coiling under his lungs, "Or _unable to stop you_?"

"What's the difference," says Aomine, pausing on her way out, right up against him in the door, face close enough that her breath is warm on his face. He hasn't had a girl look him in the face like this for a long time, and Aomine's face is creased up with annoying him, and she's _so close_, and they're all alone.

"Lots," he manages to say.

Aomine makes a face, and, just to prove he can't stop her, dives into the other room and bounces on that bed too. Alex yelps, Aomine curses, and they tumble off the bed in a tangle of skin and sheets and _too much skin_ for any sixteen year old boy to rightly have to bear. It's like fucking girls gone wild in his apartment, except _Alex_, and except Aomine.

Kagami thinks about shouting at Alex, _I thought you were going sightseeing with Tatsuya,_ but he really doesn't want the attendant conversation about bringing a girl to his empty apartment right now, at all, ever. Already Aomine is making stifled, disbelieving noises as they untangle themselves from the sheets. Alex is beginning to coo and Alex still doesn't have a shirt on, and why can't Alex lock the door when she's sleeping and why didn't he _check_ that she was out?

Kagami retreats to the kitchen and digs out the biscuits. It's going to be a long evening.

.0.

(Continued later as a separate ficlet, but chronologically these follow each other)

Kagami opened the door onto Tatsuya's smiling face and fought the urge to promptly close it again. Instead he pointed silently to Aomine and Alex curled up on his couch sniggering to each other.

"She wanted to meet another one," said Tatsuya apologetically.

"Oh god another one," said Kagami, as Murasakibara stared at Tatsuya until he bent over and yanked at the laces of her shoes so she could toe them off, carrying what appeared to be a metric ton of snacks. Some of these she put to the side, glaring at Kagami like he was going to _touch it_, but some Tatsuya unearthed and made a great show of presenting to Kagami. "She has the best taste," he confided. "We got a bunch of great deals."

"Stop enjoying this," said Kagami, making a face at him.

"You've got a nice place," said Tatsuya, and smiled, a little sly and a little sweet, and Kagami was pretty damn glad they were friends again, if they'd ever stopped.

"Mine-chin," said Murasakibara.

"Yo," said Aomine, tucking herself to the side of the couch. Alex beamed up at Murasakibara and bounced up with excitement, going to the boys.

"Boys," said Alex tenderly, hands on both their shoulders. "I'll admit, I didn't expect this, but _good job_."

"What do you mean, _good job_," said Kagami.

"They're fine women," she said, face completely straight. "You'll both have wonderful basketball babies with them."

"Alex," tutted Tatsuya, a mild smile on his face. "We're just teammates." He paused. "What's Taiga's excuse?"

"_Fuck you_," said Kagami.

Alex laughed delightedly and swanned back to the couch, a girl on either arm.

"Really, though," said Tatsuya, looking at Aomine, who was pretty _enough_, he supposed. Still, Murasakibara's Teikou stories had been eye-openers. "I guess I can pretty much pin your taste now. Tall, dark, good-looking, good at basketball, terrible person."

"You're not a terrible person," said Kagami automatically, before realizing that Tatsuya had trapped him again. "_You _don't get to lecture me about taste in women. When you were ten you were going to marry Alex."

"When you were ten," said Tatsuya, "You were going to marry _me_."

"Worst two and half seconds of my life," said Kagami, talking of a crush that had lasted a whole two and a half months, a lifetime. Tatsuya had been horrible to be in love with. He was also sort of horrible to be friends with, but Kagami was used to him now.

Aomine was watching him and Himuro talk with slightly narrowed eyes, she'd noticed him at the Yousen game and Murasakibara liked him, but that was no help at all; Murasakibara liked anyone who would scatter snacks into her lap. He tilted his head up to Kagami's, conspiratorial, intimate. They whispered to each other like best friends. His basketball was beautiful, even she would admit that. He'd made a shot and the breath had paused in the mouths of the entire stadium, following the lines of his limbs. Kagami had looked at him, that time, as though this person who loved basketball was breaking his heart.

That was sort of the problem with Kagami, really, same as Kise. They were kind of idiots about basketball. Kind of idiots anywhere.

She looked at the back of his neck as he moved. They were going to play basketball later. That would be nice.

.0.

"Kuroko and Momoi are on their way up," said Kagami. "Where's Aomine?"

"She went back into your room," said Alex.

"You couldn't have stopped her?" said Kagami.

"Six foot four and in peak physical condition?" said Alex. "I'd like to see _you _try."

"You're six feet tall and you once hit a drug dealer so hard there's still blood spatter on that court," said Kagami.

"That was different," said Alex, primly.

"Have you been having fun with Alex?" said Tatsuya to Murasakibara.

"I guess," she said. "You two talk a lot, though."

"We've been friends for a long time," Tatsuya said. "Like you and Aomine-san, right?"

"Maybe," said Murasakibara. "Mine-chin was having fun."

"I don't doubt it," said Tatsuya, as Aomine poked her head out Kagami's bedroom door and called, "Hey, the boxers in this drawer are clean, right?"

"Everything in a drawer is clea- GET OUT OF MY UNDERWEAR," roared Kagami.

Alex and Tatsuya dissolved into giggles. Murasakibara snickered into her potato sticks.

"We're here," said Kuroko, taking off her shoes as Momoi hung onto the wall, laughing so hard he was gasping for breath.

"….that wasn't what it sounded like," said Kagami.

"Aomine-san, we're here," called Kuroko.

"He's got boring underwear," said Aomine, mincing out of his room looking pleased with herself.

"Is that my shirt?" said Kagami.

"Yeah," said Aomine. "I'm not going to play in my uniform, obviously."

"Didn't you bring your own shirt?" said Momoi.

"It's a few days old," said Aomine without batting an eye. "This is marginally better." She sniffed the shirt. "It's clean."

"Of course it's CLEAN- are those _my pants_?" said Kagami.

Aomine looked down and said, "Of course not. That would be weird. You've got kind of wide hips for a guy."

"How is what NOT a weird comment?" he said.

"Look at Momoi," she said, pulling his shirt tight. "Skinny as a twig. Skinnier than _Kise_."

"Leave me and my hips out of this," said Momoi, batting her off.

They walked down to the outside court, bickering. Kagami could already imagine the dirty looks he was going to get the next time it was time to take out the recycling.

"How're we going to do this?" said Aomine, who hadn't let go of the ball all the way down the elevator, spinning it in Kagami's face. "Boys against girls? Me, Kuroko and Murasakibara?"

"Oh, no," said Kagami.

"Don't you want to be on a team with me?" said Tatsuya, in mock-indignation.

"It's being on the team against them that's the problem," said Kagami, making faces at him. "They'd beat us so bad it wouldn't even be embarrassing. It would just be sad."

"Whiner," said Aomine, and sparkled at them.

"Probably true," said Tatsuya, smiling up at Murasakibara. She crunched her crackers a touch sullenly.

"I have the solution," announced Alex. "Tatsuya, you're with me and Aomine-chan, and Taiga, you've got invisible girl and the one-girl basket wall."

"That's not a solution, that's just you deciding for us," said Kagami.

"I won't accept any objections," said Alex.

"I don't have a problem with it," said Tatsuya.

"You're not going to beat me anyway," said Aomine.

"Do I have to move?" said Murasakibara.

"Not unless you feel it's necessary," said Kuroko, patiently.

"It would very much please me if you did," said Tatsuya, beaming into her face.

"Do I have to stop eating?" said Murasakibara, after a few seconds of glaring into that face failed to produce any measurable effect.

"It's Aomine," said Momoi. Murasakibara sighed expressively and tipped the rest of the packet into her mouth, crumpling the wrapper and handing it to Kuroko, who took the three steps to the trash can and dropped it in.

"How the hell did she get away with just standing there all match, anyway?" said Kagami. "You guys put up with that?"

"She was on the same team with Aomine, Kichan and Midorin," said Momoi, as through that explained everything, and maybe it did.

"Momoi-kun will referee and score," Kuroko said.

Kagami considered Momoi stalking between their massive heights, whistle and basketball in hand, gleaming with satisfaction and good looks. "Touou's going to have amazing data on us and Yousen next year, aren't they," he said.

"Yes," said Kuroko. "But we need a referee."

"Kuroko-san's logic is unassailable," said Tatsuya. "Let's play some basketball."

.0.

Aomine had been right that Himuro's basketball was beautiful. But where she was wrong- or maybe, just not immediately aware- was that hers was beautiful too, or more beautiful, now that she laughed at the apex of a shot, now that she barged up to each of them, to all of them, bright and bold and grinning, because how fun was next year going to be? How great were they going to have it? Even Murasakibara moved and gasped and kept up on the court, Kuroko flaring and fading under their styles, Momoi glowing under the light like he hadn't been in almost a year, a kid all over again all of a sudden, watching her tear up the court with her amazingness.

And in the midst of it all, Kagami matching her move for move, deliriously, deliciously good, getting better, as though he could keep from getting better against her, with Kuroko. As though he'd ever be anything other than this, slamming past her with everything he had, everything he could muster, and always ready to give more.

.0.

"Taiga," said Aomine, sated and smug after the game, bubbling over with basketball. She tucked herself up on the counter, kicking her feet against it, leaning on the cabinet watching him try to figure out plates for seven people.

He looked at her. Tatsuya had taken on the work of keeping Murasakibara from eating the food while Kuroko was engaged keeping Momoi from making the food, and Alex had gone to shower, which meant she would be walking out naked any minute now, but Aomine had jumped at the chance first, and her hair stuck up now at weird angles because Kuroko had gone at her head with a towel before Momoi could get there with a comb.

"Yeah?" he said, absently, before he realized what she'd said.

"Hurry up," she said, and looked at him under her eyelashes, limp against the wall. "I'm hungry."


	8. Chapter 8

Today's lucky item was high heels.

"There's no way chicks wear this," said Takao, lifting one sleek black shoe- a practically vertical incline, supported by thin black straps and a wicked-looking spike, nearly as long as his hand. "I think you could kill someone with this shoe. And not by making them wear it."

Midorima pressed her towel over her face and shot him a dirty look. "I wear it," she said.

"You're not tall _enough_?" said Takao, casting a glance up to her. "Wait, these are yours?"

"Size," said Midorima by way of illustrating his stupidity, and Takao looked down at her basketball shoes: bigger than his, massive, but that was in the nature of basketball shoes. Anything more unlike the heel in his hand was hard to bring to mind.

"Put them on," he said, and then caught at his mouth; where had _that_ come from?

"What?" said Midorima, pausing in gathering up her gym bag; practice was over, even endless exhaustive shooting practice, and the regulars were dripping off to the lockers to shower and change before heading home.

Takao could think very fast indeed, it was what made him such an excellent point guard. "I…bet you can't walk in them," he said. "From- from the vending machine out to the rickshaw, and then home."

"I _own_ those," said Midorima. "They're my shoes. I've had heels since I was twelve. I can walk in them."

"I bet you can't," he said. "I'll bet… One selfish request. Any time. Anything. I'll back it up against whoever you like. All the way out through the school, until the rickshaw. I'll bet you tip over and I have to catch you in my strong manly arms before you fall flat on your face."

He had her on the hook now, at the hint of a challenge, and she threw the towel over one shoulder, said "_Fine_," threw her gym bag over the other shoulder, and stalked off to the girls' showers, seething.

The heels dangled from his hand as he waited at their usual spot, the vending machine at the opening of the sports buildings, where he could hang out and commiserate with his fellow regulars about being appointed Midorima's servant as they drank energy drinks and waited to trail off in groups. She came striding along the corridor with her school shoes on, and Takao waved the heels to her, and grinned.

She snarled at him, grabbing the shoes. "Let's get this over with," she said, and cleared the lone bench of two kendo club second-years with a jerk of her chin so she could sit on it to put them on. Miyagi and Kimura, watching, sighed.

Midorima wore black knee socks that Takao correctly suspected on any other girl would have been thigh-highs, very correct and demure. Watching her slip them off carefully to keep from stretching them, revealing the muscles of her calf, all of Midorima's skin very pale against the unrelenting black- the miles of leg suddenly revealed- the way the straps cinched around the bones of her ankles- Takao began to get the impression that he was teetering on the edge of something he probably could not take back.

It was getting cold enough that Midorima dried all her hair before leaving, which had left Takao with enough time to be interrogated about why he had their ace's lucky item and a shit-eating grin, and now left them open to ambush by the coach and captain, fresh from post-practice weekly discussion.

She stood, and Takao looked her up and down, all the long graceful lines of her limbs. Something was changed in her stance, the curves of her legs reframed in a way that Takao could not drag his eyes from, and it made his mouth run dry.

Ootsubo nodded in greeting, and then looked _up_ into Midorima's face, with a bemused expression. She cleared him by a handspan, and looked dispassionately down onto the rest of them.

"I've made a bet with Shin-chan," said Takao, just to forestall their coach's raised eyebrow.

"One he's going to lose," said Midorima, and then she thrust her bag at him and said, "Let's go."

"Does it invalidate the bet if I'm carrying your bag," Takao started to say, but then Midorima produced a complicated little hip-jar movement to navigate the grass-filled spaces in the path, half between a mince and a sway, and the words died in his mouth as she walked off, her prim uniform fluttering.

"Ex-_cuse_ me," he said to the sempai and coach, all watching him and her in varying degrees of bemusement and fascination, and followed, shouldering Midorima's bag.

"They always go home together, don't they?" said Miyagi, in the tones of someone making a horrible and awful discovery.

"This feels like a terrible mistake we should stop him from making," said Kimura, watching them walk away, or rather, Midorima walk away, and Takao trailing after at just the right distance to keep all of her in view.

Tagged: #takao is at once the most pitied and most envied man in shuutoku #the coach is just -_- i've been here for 11 years guys just go on being young

.

.

.

"Coach," said Midorima. "I need to miss practice today."

He frowned. "That's short notice," he said. "Reason?"

"Personal reasons," said Midorima.

The coach said nothing. He continued to stare, as was his practice, at a point somewhere to the left of Midorima's ear. Sometimes it was hard on the coaches, taking a chance on the Generation of Miracles the way they did. Midorima did not judge.

"I need to convince someone he doesn't want to go out with me," said Midorima.

"Mmph," said the Coach. He went back to grading papers. "Excused."

.0.

Midorima refused all school day to be drawn out on the reason she was leaving early, but when the regulars discovered her in the regular's club room putting on makeup in the tiny mirror she had hanging in her locker, no amount of threats of extra laps could have stopped Takao from racing there. He found her determinedly continuing, in the face of a double handful of boys lounging on the benches pretending they weren't watching in awe.

"_Shin-chan_," said Takao, in tones of greatest betrayal. "You're skipping practice, and then I come and find you doing _this_?"

"I have a date," said Midorima. She didn't say it like normal girls said, _I have a date_. She said it somewhat ominously and bad-temperedly instead, the way delinquents in dramas said, _I have a score to settle_.

"Shin-chan you're breaking my heart," said Takao. Midorima took a tiny bottle of perfume- today's lucky item, and something the girls in her class had gone crazy over- and sprayed it pointedly in their direction. It was clear that only her extreme forbearance stopped her from maceing them all in the eyes. It smelled clean and clear and sweet. Expensive, probably. "Who's the guy?"

"It doesn't matter," said Midorima. "They're all the same. His parents will be friends with my parents, we will have a nice meal that is nonetheless a waste of my afternoon, and at the end of it we will politely say goodbye to each other and never meet or speak of each other ever again."

"You're going on a blind date," Takao said. "You're- I should have a comment to make about that, but I actually really don't."

"Boys don't have to worry about this," she sighed, dusting her cheekbones with shimmer; her eyes already glared at them a little larger and lovelier, her hair taken out of its customary two braids and put into the long loose one which Shin-chan considered quite the height of casual indecency. She had on a dress. A nice dress. It flowed to a demure stop right above her knees and she wore a cardigan over the top for extra coverage. "Shouldn't you all be getting to practice?"

They made desultory noises. One of them had tied and retied his shoe ten times now. They were fifteen minutes late for practice. If Miyaji-sempai was around to see this, he would have gone on a killing spree. "No changing the subject," said Takao. "Seriously, your parents make you go on blind dates?"

"It keeps my mother happy," said Midorima. "They don't _make_ me. It's just easier if I go and then get it over with."

"So you're going to tell him no," said Takao, watching her line her lips with colour. It was paler than the lipstick that Kise had put onto Shin-chan at the Winter Cup. Well, that figured, right? Kise was bolder than Midorima, and somehow the thought of her going to meet someone else with that particular shade of rose all over her mouth wasn't comfortable.

"_He's_ going to tell me no," said Midorima, with satisfaction. She pulled out a pair of heels- not the same ones, Takao noted, not that he'd spend a lot of time thinking about the look of them against her ankles or anything- and waved them at the room at large.

"I don't see how sexy heels are going to make him say no to you," said Takao. Several much less brave regulars mentally concurred.

"No one is going to want to date a girl who's so much taller than him," she said, looking at them all like they were idiots. "I've put in effort to present well, so it doesn't insult him, but in the end his answer is still going to be no. It's basic common sense, honestly."

Several _assholes_ immediately craned their heads around to look at Takao's face at this statement.

"You're putting in a _lot_ of effort," said Takao.

"The formalities must be maintained," said Midorima.

"I think you should tell me where you're going," said Takao.

"No," said Midorima, with the scorn of long experience. "It's none of your business and you'll just turn up and make fun of me." She thought about it. "Besides, I don't intend it to have it go so long. In case any of you have forgotten, you still have practice."

"I could turn up and make fun of _him_," said Takao. Several wild plots verged on emerging from his tongue; _I could tell him you fell suddenly horribly sick and couldn't make it, I could turn up and pretend to be your boyfriend to scare him off, I could turn up and collect you after your ordeal and we could have our own date, I bet it would be more fun. We could date. _

_Would that be fun?_

"You could not turn up at all," said Midorima, stepping into her heels, "And tomorrow when I come in to school we will never speak of this again." She swept her gaze around the room. "All of you. _Go to practice_."

Someone made a worshipful sound. Midorima gathered up her bag and left, leaving a trail of perfume behind her and obviously also a trail of broken hearts, moving too fast to really be fleeing.

.0.

Takao spent practice in an increasingly bad mood, fielding bracing slaps on the back and pitying looks while repeatedly looking at Midorima's empty spot at the half-court, where on a normal day Shin-chan would be shooting baskets already and not budge until practice was almost over and she had to do her cooldown stretches. This only invited more bracing back-slaps and pity-stares, which Takao felt was basically unfair and also _really irritating_.

This refused to change when he checked his phone at the end of practice, and Midorima had written absolutely nothing. No _save me_, no _escaped_, no _his astrological sign was completely incompatible with mine, thank goodness for the close shave_.

Not even Nakatani was strict enough to expect extra practices right before their exams, so for once they managed to stumble off home when the sky was barely beginning to darken, instead of relentlessly black. Takao had been amazed that Midorima had condescended at all to give up valuable studying time to go _on a date_, when obviously her place at the head of the school was in clear jeopardy; the cabal of class 3's go-home club were literally trading notes by dead drop. He continued to think back and forth about how pissy she'd get if he mailed her over 'trivial matters' in this trying time. She'd probably gone straight home and hit the books without bothering to check in with anyone, she'd never be caught…. out…. in the… evening… talking avidly with some guy in the window of a cutesy café.

Wait, what the fuck? What? What?

Takao stopped dead and actually walked back and peered into the window, scaring a group of junior high school girls. The guy was- Touou's number nine, their shooting guard, a guy who usually looked scared of his own shadow on the court, and was he- was he showing her _his shot_? Really? _In public_? Midorima was watching him with her dark intense eyes, leaning over the table to talk to him, she was showing him her taped hand, he was touching her- oh, _enough_.

"Shin-chan," said Takao, as Sakurai and Midorima blinked up at him. Sakurai began to cower, gratifyingly. Midorima… _blushed_.

"Takao?" she said. "Is practice over? That's ear- oh. It's gotten this late."

"I'm sorry!" said Sakurai, bowing profusely. "I'm so sorry! I've kept you too long!"

"No, no," said Midorima, looking mildly alarmed. "We were talking and I lost track of time."

"_I_ lost track of time," cried Sakurai- literally crying, was this guy for real? "I'm so so sorry!"

Takao said, "This was your blind date? Seriously?"

"Sakurai-kun, yes," said Midorima. "He plays for Touou. It's quite a coincidence."

"I know he plays for Touou," said Takao.

"I'm sorry I'm also in Aomine-san's class," said Sakurai. Takao threw him his very best Shin-chan Withering Glare™.

Midorima ignored this. "We were just talking about basketball," she said, smoothing her braid over her shoulder.

Takao almost reeled, how- how _diabolical_. If there was a better way to draw Midorima in other than chatting her up _about basketball_, then, well. That was half his own strategy right there.

"I'm so so sorry," said Sakurai again, staring at her with his huge cow-eyes. He hadn't expected Shuutoku's Midorima-san to actually turn up, and then he hadn't expected her to be so _beautiful_, and then he hadn't expected her to so willingly share the secrets of her shot, looking at him as though she was _interested_. He'd been _enthralled_. Aomine-san was usually just terrifying. Terrifying all the time.

"Well," said Midorima. "Meeting you was… unexpected, Sakurai-kun." She smoothed her hands in her lap, and said delicately, "But you do understand…"

"No, no," he said. "Of course, practices are- well, the season is- there's no time- I'm sorry."

"I'm glad we see this the same way," said Midorima crisply. Now her ears were red, and she refused to look at Takao. "I look forward to facing off against Touou." She stood, bowed, and then left as fast as she could. Takao, after casting one last baleful look at Sakurai, followed.

"Was it a nice date?" said Takao, catching up with her easily. She minced as she walked, like she had a little trouble in those heels. Well, that figured. They really were amazingly tall.

She walked a little faster, or tried to. "I knew you'd make fun of me," she said. "It wasn't- unbearable. Now shut up about it."

"Yeah, you guys had a great time talking about basketball," he said. "A not-unbearable great time, huh?"

Midorima gritted her teeth at his insistence on the subject. She clutched the perfume bottle in her untaped hand, and considered throwing it at him.

"Practice is more important," Takao said, a touch desperately. "I mean, this dude chose practice over trying with you, so-"

"I told him that upfront," Midorima said. "Mother said that this one played basketball. Sakurai-kun understood."

"Understood," echoed Takao. "Yeah, I mean, you two… talked about basketball. He was showing you his shot."

"The Quick Release is technically interesting as a shot," she said. "He also brought flowers, but I think we left those at the restaurant while trying to find a court."

"He sounds compatible," said Takao, even though he knew it was stupid, knew it was childish, knew he didn't have reason to be acting like this. "You wanted to play with him?"

"He's a Virgo, though," she said, looking at him with those lovely eyes, and from that height, and he was gone, wasn't he? Gone all the damn way. "So he's not as compatible as you."


	9. Chapter 9

The thing is when they start in Shuutoku, no one really believes it. Her. Midorima. They hear hundred percent accuracy and imagine the softest of soft touches floating the ball down from the three-point line, something closer to luck than genius. Anyone can be accurate, they imagine. Even a girl. Maybe especially a girl. It takes something delicate to make a three-pointer.

Midorima, who doesn't so much make three-pointers as she does annihilate the net with the ball, comes as something of a shock.

Midorima must have the heart and lungs of a horse to keep going the way she does, as Shuutoku's practices thin out in a hurry. The second that the court clears enough, she kicks them off the half-court and claims it all for herself, then _keeps on shooting_, keeps on making them, sweating through her practice clothes and not ever speaking to anyone. The coach's simple answer to this is, "She joined us because she believed we would aim for the top." There's not really anything you can say to that, except maybe to cry, and bend your head to train harder. Three times national champions, and it doesn't take any kind of genius to hit on why the Generation of Miracles have scattered the way they have. One of them intends to come out on top.

Takao trains harder. Midorima's only gotten more amazing, more unbelievable. She tucks her sleeves up into her shirt to practice and the movement of her muscles under her skin is enough to make anyone stop and stare. But it's not like they get treated to that view that often. Midorima wears exactly the same training clothes as the rest of them, huge shirts and long shorts. They'd probably fit the captain just as well, and Coach works them hard enough that anyone could forget Midorima's a girl, except for the two long pigtails on her shoulders, except for the infuriating things she says in her unmistakable voice.

"I want the full court," she demands one day, and promptly uses up a selfish request to get it done. Full fucking court. That leaves them to use the outside courts or just do normal drills _outside_, and even Coach gets that faint line between his eyes and lets Miyaji-sempai mutter on for a full half-hour about what fruits he'll throw at her head for shooting practice. It seems to energise him, though. He does almost a third again his normal drills.

And then, and then. When the tournaments start, they're embarrassed to have to acknowledge that the predicted gaps in their team play don't matter at all, just as she had said they would. It's not even that they're that good. It's that she is. With Midorima on the team, all they have to do is pass to her. And that's where Takao begins to _shine_.

Midorima doesn't talk about what he likes to think of as his confession to her, all his blood and sweat and tears. It might actually embarrass her a little, and isn't that the most bitter nail in his coffin, to be pitied by someone you had no hope of ever matching up against. But he's keeping his promise to himself. Takao has always had talent, if not genius. He hasn't stopped aiming for the top.

After two straight quarters of sitting out against a no-name school with members who gulp promisingly at the sight of her and worse at the scowls of the sempai, Midorima appears to come to a decision.

"Coach," she says, and stretches her offensively long arm to grab Takao by the shoulder, across the Captain and Kimura-sempai. It's just like Shin-chan, to not, say, just call his name to get his attention. The sempai are at the end of an amazingly long rope, but they've also been winning without any trouble at all. Coach lets her be carted around in a rickshaw like a princess. He is going to let her do exactly as she wishes twice more today.

"I want the ball," she says.

"We all want the ball, Shin-chan," says Takao. "That's why we chase after it. That's why the game is named basket-_ball_."

"I want it all the next quarter," she said. "I'll be at the three-quarter court mark."

There's a moment of astounding, breathless silence. She lifts her eyes behind their stern spectacles and says, "I _will_ make the shot."

Coach agrees, because apparently this their life now. Three-quarter three-pointers. They're in high school, and Takao must be dreaming.

"Geniuses must breathe a different air than we do," remarks Takao.

"If she _misses_," snarls Miyaji, and then stops. Shin-chan doesn't miss. There's already a huge hole in their heads when it comes to her missing. It might be literally impossible.

Midorima's arms bulge as she stretches them, untapes her fingers. Delicate hands, though. Slim wrists. Perfect nails. Strong shoulders in Shuutoku's jersey.

She makes the shot. And then another. And another. There's barely any more noise on the court, and the rest of them might as well not be there. Takao doesn't know why Midorima bothers testing her shots in game conditions. Their ten-point lead stretches to a twenty. At the start of the fourth quarter, she gets up again. If Takao didn't know better, he'd say that Shin-chan was _pleased_.

"Full court," she says, half to herself. Takao catches it.

"Full court," he repeats, a little louder. Ootsubo-san half-turns. The opposing team look thoroughly demoralised.

They have a twenty-point lead. Coach barely has to nod his approval.

When the ball slams through the net, laser-straight, everyone turns to look at Midorima standing in front of the _other_ hoop. She doesn't even see them looking at her. Her gaze is fixed on the hoop.

"_Kiseki no Sedai_," murmurs through the crowd. Midorima doesn't seem to hear them either. Her goal is so much further away than this.

.

.

.

Midorima is pleased when Coach Nakatani accepts her without a murmur; or at least a murmur of, "We'll expect you to work hard," which is something she can work with. They're going onto high school as players in the boy's league, just they always have, and Midorima could get used to Shuutoku's uniform, which she is wearing in a perfectly correct manner, as she should be. Fate has not let her down. Shuutoku is a good school with fine traditions, and she anticipates she will do well here.

She does not anticipate the boy who comes up to her with her name ready at hand and introduces himself without any seriousness at all.

"How do you know my name?" she says, and looks at him. She's sure she's never seen him before in her life.

He stares at her blankly for a moment before he laughs, is something funny? He seems strange. "There's no way," he says, "There's no way someone can play basketball and not know who you are."

Midorima cannot say the same for him. Perhaps in his junior high he was someone; here, he's only a little bit more than no one. He sticks close, though, despite Midorima's preferences otherwise. She doesn't have time for frivolous people. Shuutoku works them too hard for petty grudges and the seniors are too proud to let such things pass. Midorima is first-string before the first-years finish their first showcase matches, and an unquestioned regular. Takao practices like a regular, like Midorima does. Exactly like. Midorima does. He always stays when she stays (which is always, because there can be no slacking off), even though this means that as a first-year he's likely to get stuck doing chores and screamed at by Miyaji-sempai, who isn't quite as tall as her, but makes up for it in fierceness. A few others try this at first too. They think that sucking up to the obvious new ace will get them further, they think she's weak and can be turned to their cause. They think she has time for their jostling and insinuations, that they can mess around with her lucky items, that she's that kind of girl. They're quickly weeded out. Miyaji-sempai is everywhere and hears everything, does not forgive and does not forget. When he shouts, sometimes spit gathers at the corner of his mouth and no one ever dares to point this out, not even Midorima. Not Takao, though. Oh, he jokes. He isn't dumb enough to let it get in the way of his training or hers, so even though he keeps talking to her, making jokes at her, _touching her_, brisk shoulder slaps, all very manly, Midorima tries not to push the issue until she can't- it's _bothering her_ so much-

(It's probably because she's a girl.)

"What are you trying to do?" she says, after another bout of ceaseless familiarity while they're staying late for practice. He's even like this in school. He hangs out the windows- or in the windows- and calls for her like they're friends.

"Do?" he says.

"You're too aware of me," she says, and knows it's true as she says it. She's used to being stared at, to being the standout here, but none of the rest of them are as focused as Takao is. He looks and he looks and he never stops watching. It's like no matter what he does, he wants to keep her in the corner of his eye.

"You're the nicest thing to look at in this place," tries Takao, but Midorima shoots him a withering glare instead. "Maybe I'm lovestruck," he tries again, but Midorima has had enough of his jokes.

"You're competing with me," she says. "During practice, you keep trying to outdo me." _You won't_, she doesn't tell him. She always does all she can.

He looks uncomfortable, and Midorima realizes she's only ever seen that face once before, when he first introduced himself, and she stared at him like she'd never seen him before. "I lost against you in Junior High," he says, and shrugs, because this doesn't exactly make him special. Midorima does not remember, and says so blankly.

"Of course you don't," he says. "Of course you- you know what? I didn't say anything. The first time you notice me, it's going to be because of my amazing basketball, or I'll throw you a pass and as just as you're receiving it, you'll look at me and realize I'm totally a guy cool enough to make you remember me just from that."

"That makes no sense," says Midorima. "Of course I remember you. You're far noisier than anyone else."

"No, that's not a good enough reason," says Takao. "Shin-chan, I'll work as hard as you. Harder!"

"Don't call me that," says Midorima, and goes back to practice.

(For all that he claims to be forgettable, Midorima cannot forget their conversation- hope and disappointment and determination and tenacity, written on Takao's face. She hadn't known he could make those kind of expressions. How can she forget?

She does not remember.)

When Coach hands out the jerseys, Takao grips his ten and grins at it. Midorima doesn't know why he's so surprised- it'll remain to be seen, of course, how many games he sits in and how many they let him play, but they don't have a regular PG yet and Takao might just make the cut if his stamina can hold up against the second and third year first-stringers who are also fairly good PGs. Takao has a good eye and good pass sense, but he is only a first-year. He'll need to work harder if he wants it.

He'll need to work harder than anyone else.

.0.

The rickshaw solves so many problems.

"You need the stamina training," she says to him, and sits back to enjoy the wind on her skin. He'd even found an old beach umbrella from somewhere, and Kimura-sempai has somehow contrived to attach it to the rickshaw (that day's selfish requests two and three) and the shade is enjoyable.

Takao grumbles, but makes good time; his shoulders move under the heavy black jacket and he settles into the rhythm. Midorima does like the gakuran, she thinks; blazers are smarter, but the clean lines of Shuutoku's uniform are more forgiving. She doesn't approve of how Takao wears it, though. Uniforms shouldn't be altered to suit personal preference. They should be worn correctly.

He stands to cycle faster, and the red of his shirt rides up the curve of his back.

At least when they're traveling, thinks Midorima, Takao doesn't have the breath to complain. Or tell her she should wave to the people they're passing like the Royal family does. Or choke back comments about the load he's carrying. Or look at her with the pot of jam in her lap for long silent moments, rearranging the long heavy plaits of her hair. She can't tell what he's thinking at times like that, except that obviously he's just being strange.

"I'd make you switch with me," says Takao, panting. "But I don't think my manliness could take it."

"What manliness?" inquires Midorima acidly.

Takao laughs, and his hair falls into his eyes as he curls up with inexplicable hilarity.

.0.

Midorima is unprepared for the wall of silence that descends when she enters the inn's dining room. She's a little late, she supposes, but Takao has saved her a seat and there's tea steaming in a cup in front of the empty seat, which is nice. She hasn't had time to wrap up her fingers again, and her hair is still a little damp, and she _is_ late, but there's no reason to stare like this, like the start of term all over again. They're acting like there's something wrong.

Seirin is eating after them, so Midorima runs into Aida Riko in the kitchen, staring at a pot with staggering intensity. Seirin doesn't have Shuutoku's budget. Sometimes, Midorima thinks about the quality of the school Kuroko has gone to, and it makes her very sad.

Kuroko's expression doesn't so much as flicker when she comes into the screened-off side that Kuroko is sharing with her coach, but this isn't much of a change. Kiyoshi Teppei brings in another futon for her, and she thanks him, the both of them looking up at him while he stands and towers. Aida-san has a commendable grasp of efficiency and when _she_ makes a suggestion to Seirin, they snap to immediately without any of the stammering or staring that Midorima had to deal with when she fetched her things from the shared room, when she had such trouble getting served dinner. (When Takao had looked at her, and said, _Shin-chan_, some incomprehensible note in his voice.)

"Is there anything wrong with Shuutoku's arrangements?" asks Kuroko, pausing mid-chapter. Another of Kuroko's trashy detective novels, no doubt. The spine is barely cracked.

"Why should there be anything wrong?" says Midorima, stabbing at her phone. Her nails are getting a little long.

Kuroko looks down at the expanse of pale leg folded under Midorima as she sits primly waiting for the next day's horoscope to come in, and how her light shirt clings more than the practice shirt Midorima had been wearing earlier today. Midorima-san has grown. "I can't imagine," she says, and goes back to her book.

.0.

After Rakuzan they go home in the rickshaw, like always, and in silence. The seniors will be retiring now. They'll be the only two regulars left of their current line-up. He's about to drop her where she usually drops her, and she gets out-

Presses her head into his back, and cries again, one last time, holding onto his jacket in her hands like her very last lucky item.

Only losing ever hurts quite like this.

.0.

(Midorima is never certain when, exactly- Takao throws his arm around her shoulders, and all she can think about is how much stronger he has gotten since that first time. She hears the girls in her classes squealing about him after he finally leaves her in peace to eat her lunch and can maybe see their point. He says, _Shin-chan_, and it sounds like something other than a ridiculously infantilizing and cutesy nickname.

She's his teammate, and he's her friend, and she doesn't have time for things like this, dreams like this.)

When Coach names him the new captain of the team, he looks at her like he expects to her to be surprised. She isn't.

She recognizes this better than anyone: he's worked hard.


	10. Chapter 10

When the girl walked into the gym for Kirisaki Daiichi's basketball club holding the club application form in her hand, the first thing they thought was, _score, we've got a cute manager_.

She was _cute_, in a studious kind of way. Rather tall for a girl, with long black hair fastened in a demure side-pony, and a nice body under the uniform. Her large eyes gazed lazily out at the world under thick dark eyelashes. Even the captain snapped to painfully eager attention as she made her way to him.

"Here to join as manager?" he said, unable to keep the notes of hope out of his voice. He is a sad, sad man. "You'll want the coach for-"

"No," she said, in a soft sweet voice which- holy fuck talk about false advertising, yet another trademark mindscrew- managed to somehow carry to every corner of the room. "I'm here to join the team."

A short laugh went around the court. This was before Teikou's miraculous blooming, and many of them were still inclined to think of the Generation of Miracles as a joke, a stunt, a gimmick, their wins sustained by the best power forward in the middle school league and the efforts of Teikou's talented first-string, sure to wipe out once they hit a natural physical wall, or in other words high school. Second-time national champs looked better with pretty girls on the cover, was a common bench joke. Plenty of encouragement for the first-string to make the girls look good, if you know what I mean,_ nudge nudge wink wink_, I mean Akashi-chan could tell me what to do anytime, was a locker room one. It was a shame that such celebrated history as Teikou's turned to cheap stunts to gain fame for the school, but that was political correctness for you.

Besides, this _was_ high school. There was not a freshman among them who hadn't put on another five or more centimeters of height since graduation, not a regular who wasn't on the kind of regime more commonly reserved for Olympic athletes. Girls couldn't compete on that level. Girls would wipe out. Girls wouldn't last. The sooner they got her disabused of her notions, the better it would be for her, and maybe they'd get their cute manager after all.

But they didn't have to be cruel about it, of course. Hanamiya Makoto- based on the recommendation of her previous coach, and the earnest, beseeching way she stared at the captain until he agreed- got a trial, and when she proved to be a fairly good basketball player (for a girl), they let her in. Makoto-chan, their mascot.

The future of Kirisaki Daiichi.

.0.

Makoto-chan floats to the head of the first-years on what Kazuya knows the seniors think is a combination of her winning personality and the way her too-big shirt slips sideways on her shoulders, but it's not _that_. (It might actually be safer to hit on a shark, the way that first-years who get into Makoto-chan's way inconspicuously drop out of practices, of the club, of school. Second-years, too. The few girls who think that the freshman should know her place.)

It's _something_ to do with her personality, anyway.

Makoto-chan has a mouth like a sailor and a mind like a particularly edgy josei manga, an endless inventiveness for amusement. She shows a bit more of her true self during their drills and practices- not that she lets her guard down, but that they're too cowed or mesmerized to rat her out, and who'd believe them anyway? All she has to do is keep being better than them, which she is without even trying.

Maybe it's a cliché, the poor little rich kids with their rotten little hearts, but post-practice conversation turns to how pathetic their practice matches have been, how pathetic their practices have been, all the encouraging words that get thrown about like they're worth anything, all the good little kids with their tears of pure youthful spirit gold.

"Yeah, but what can you do about it," says Zaki, who's always been the one too stupid not be first up against the firing squad.

"Then you twist to the side and hit him in his stupid face, that's what you fucking do," replies Makoto, and suits action to the word by _smashing_ some guy in the next match in his stupid face, and probably she breaks his nose and he's going to need to go and get checked out and the whole other team is pissed beyond imagining, but Makoto runs to the captain and buries her face full of tears into his chest, sobbing about how sorry she is, what a terrible accident, how horrible she feels, she'll never forgive herself _how can they ever forgive her?_ By the time she's finished even the referee is looking like he wants to drag the boy back to tell her everything's going to be okay, and the other team is thoroughly convinced she's faking it and they're so pissed and they can't do _anything. _

It's _amazingly_ fun.

.0.

That's the counterpoint, to rumors leaking up to them about the Generation of Miracles, about the amazing all-girl team, about overwhelming victory and Teikou's unbeatable geniuses. It's like some kind of fever overtakes everyone who's, say, played Teikou's Aomine, an unbearable desire to win now, win here, before they graduate and advance again on all the hopes and dreams of high school basketball boys.

A magazine article comes out naming five players – because fuck knows, they can only write about the Generation of Miracles _almost_ all of the time- the _Uncrowned Generals_, the also-rans, the second-bests, people who were, you know, _great_ in junior high, great now, out from under Teikou's shadow, but never quite able to get out themselves, and Makoto's on that list, along with some other people Koujirou has never heard of, because when the Generation of Miracles is around, who wants to hear about anything else?

Makoto makes the first person who shows the article to her _eat it_.

The second person to mention the article to her calls out to her before a match. He has on a red and black jersey, some school Koujirou doesn't know.

He must have balls of steel. "Makoto-chan!" he calls out, and compliments her on the piece.

"Imayoshi-sempai," she says, and accepts so prettily that all the first-years _know_ she's mad.

"Havin' fun?" he says, and casts his eye over them, smiling in a way that makes them all want to back up behind her well out of the way.

"Of course I am," says Makoto, smiling as well. It widens and twists until it covers half her face.

"Well, tha's peachy," says the creep, and flashes a smile at Makoto as he turns to leave, and Koujirou is astonished to see her looking at his back with absolutely no expression, everything wiped clean off her face. "Watch out for yourselves, though? Makoto-chan's a _bad girl_."

"Oh," she says later, when someone more unwise asks in front of the seniors, and she can't make them shut up in time. "That was just my nickname when I was in junior high, that's all. It was cruel of sempai to remind me of it."

'Bad Girl' is her nickname now, shouted from the overhead seats as she whips around and does a trademark steal, as she smacks someone else's dreams away. Makoto plays basketball as a kind of psychological warfare, and even if you don't know her, you can know that, so it's almost a natural thing to start calling her. That senior watches one of their games, two, before one of the Three Kings takes Touou Gakuen out of the tournament.

They don't find out until later- much, _much_ later, in the wake of Seirin and watching Aomine and Touou slice through them like knives- that Makoto and Touou's now-captain used to _date_, and that she started as the team's manager then, and followed him as captain.

That kind of explains a lot.

.0.

"What the _hell_ was that?" rages the coach, the instant that they get back into the school again and he has every single player from that match lined up in front of him, like they don't all want to just go the fuck home already. The captain isn't one of them.

"An accident, of course," says Makoto-chan, blinking up at him, trying to cover for the whole team, eyes wide, but coach isn't having any of that, not this time. Kiyoshi Teppei is being advised to go for surgery. You can't chalk that up to rough play.

"Bullshit," says the coach. Makoto-chan gasps delicately. "There's been at least one 'accident' in every match we've played this season. That ends here, do you understand me? The next person who causes this kind of accident- _any_ kind of accident- can consider themselves off the team. That goes for _all_ of you. Kirisaki doesn't need such dirty plays."

Everyone looked at Makoto after he was gone. That was what Zaki remembered most about that, really, if he was going to try and pinpoint the time everything _really_ changed. Everyone had looked at Makoto.

.0.

The next week, he's gone. There are a lot of rumors about why he goes- Kentarou hasn't heard these many conflicting stories since that time in junior high when the girl in the back left corner of the class disappeared- but Makoto comes into practice smiling widely, smiling, _smiling_, and it doesn't matter how he went.

Makoto wanted him gone, and he's gone. The captain's gone, too, though more naturally as the third-years take their leave of the club for entrance exams, and Kentarou wonders if any of the second-years have noticed their ranks thinning over the course of the year, every time Makoto sees a bump in her road.

Well, if they haven't noticed, he's not going to tell them. Kentarou likes his internal organs where they are, and, almost, the way Makoto plays basketball, once you cut through the layers of bullshit and boredom. She doesn't hate basketball, like one of the seniors tries to scream at them when he leaves, like that'll change anything about this. She just hates everyone who plays it. The way that Makoto plays basketball could steal the breath from anyone's lungs.

They vote her in as captain at the start of the new school year. Captain _and_ coach, and just in time for the new meat to arrive.

"Everyone," Makoto says, sounding almost nearly genuinely delighted. "I'll try to be worthy of your trust."


End file.
